Blogging Librarian

Publishers are seriously re-thinking their audiobooks business as there is a recent fever about audiobooks, according to this article in the International Herald Tribune.

Recently, an audiobook by Mignon Fogarty, who hosts a popular podcast Grammar Girl, climbed to the top of the US iTunes’ best-selling books list after an appearance on “The Opray Winfrey Show”. Well, the ironic thing is that the book is not even written yet and the audiobook was hastily recorded for the show.

And now, publishers are even planning on releasing audiobooks before the hardcover versions are released. This is because of the relative ease of making the recordings. In the case of Fogarty’s audiobook, it was made on US$600 worth of sound equipment in her home, which she was already using to record her podcasts. In addition, publishers have released that the audiobooks have raised awareness of the release of the book rather than steal sales away from it. Audiobooks are also produced for works where a published book is unlikely to happen.

Sidenote:
The public libraries in Singapore recently introduced audiobooks to our collection. The audiobooks are in CD-Rom format and available at Central Lending Library, Woodlands Regional Library, Tampines Regional Library and Jurong Regional Library. In order to borrow audiobooks, you will need to sign up for Premium membership, which is available at S$21 annually.

Technorati Tags: audiobooks, libraries, publishers