audio-books

REVIEW: Escape Velocity by Anah Crow and Dianne Fox

REVIEW: Escape Velocity by Anah Crow and Dianne Fox

Dear Ms. Crow and Fox. I would not have finished this book if I had not been listening to it on audio book instead of reading it. In fact, I tried multiple times to read it when it was released from Torquere Press and couldn’t. Now revised for and re-released through Carina, it was also [...]

Thursday Midday Links: Steve Jobs Passed Away

Thursday Midday Links: Steve Jobs Passed Away

I don’t have any beautiful eulogy to give Jobs and it’s not that I don’t believe that he deserves a beautiful eulogy. He does.  He transformed our collective lives. But I have neither the connection nor the knowledge from which to give voice to a remembrance.  I’ve read several and these are few I thought [...]

Federation of the Blind Pushes Back Against Authors Guild

Authors’ Guild is peeved about Kindle’s Text to Speech function and the Federation of the Blind is pushing back. "The National Federation of the Blind supports all technologies that allow blind people to have better access to the printed word, including the ability of devices like the Kindle 2 to read commercial e-books aloud using [...]

Author’s Guild Tells Authors to Stay Out of the Ebook Game

AuthorsGuild  , an organization designed to promote the best interests of authors, are upset because the text to speech function offered by the Kindle 2.0 may infringe on the author’s derivative right to audio performances. “They don’t have the right to read a book out loud,” said Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild. “That’s [...]

Hachette to Stop Producing Books on Tape

Audio books will no longer be sold on cassette tapes at Hachette due to poor demand. Cassette player sales have dwindled dramatically with sales dropping from 18 million in 1994 to 480,000 in 2007. Frankly, it surprises me more that anyone is still buying a new portable cassette player. Cassette audio books accounted for 7 [...]

Audible Tries to Tap Into Youth Market

Audio book sales were down by 5.7% in February according to the AAP but up overall by 5.6%. Audible is trying to increase its market by reaching out to kids. According to an AP article, 1/3 of all youth have an ipod or some other mp3 player. The goal is to reach these kids so [...]

Penguin Withdraws AudioBooks from eMusic

One step forward and two steps back can describe Penguin’s path toward digital media. Last month, eMusic launched a DRM free audiobook program. Penguin Audio was participating to the tune of 150 titles. This month, its withdrawn from the program due to “concerns about digital piracy.” Penguin doesn’t state that there has been piracy only [...]

Simply Audiobooks to Go DRM Free

Simply Audiobooks to Go DRM Free

It seems like every day we get more and more announcements of companies selling digital content without software locks on it. Last week, eMusic announced its intention of selling its audiobooks without DRM and now Simply Audiobooks, the second largest online retailer of digital audiobooks (behind Audible) will be offering DRM free audiobooks with the [...]

eMusic Offers DRM Free Audiobooks

eMusic is the world’s largest retailer of indie music and the second largest digital music provider after iTunes. Starting today, September 18, eMusic will offer audiobooks in an mp3 format without DRM. The collection will include Blackstone Audio, Hachette, Naxos Audiobooks, Penguin and Random House. The costs are $9.99 for one book or $19.99 for [...]

Amazon to Acquire Brilliance Audio

ShelfAwareness reported this morning that Amazon is on the verge of acquiring Brilliance Audio, U.S’s largest independent audiobook publisher. It puts out 12-15 audiobooks each month and is located in Grand Haven, Mich. Amazon is no stranger to acquisitions. Two years ago it purchased Mobipocket which has the largest library of ebooks; last month it [...]

Audiobook Rentals Are Now Available

I always thought Audio books were way too expensive for purchase and I have only used them when I could check them out from the library, but my libraries selection was very limited. Audible is a good resource, offering many books for less than $20 if you subscribed. A better solution is Audiobooksonline, a UK [...]