Free audiobooks business model hurting Authors

Much as cheap digital-music downloads have meant that fewer bands can earn a living from record-company deals, fewer literary authors will be able to support themselves as e-books win acceptance, publishers and agents say. “In terms of making a living as a writer, you better have another source of income,” says Nan Talese, whose Nan A. Talese/Doubleday imprint publishes Ian McEwan, Margaret Atwood and John Pipkin.  PCSpeed.net

Technorati Tags: free audiobooks

DOD oversees destruction of classified war audio books

The Defense Department says it has overseen the destruction of 9,500 audio books of a former Army intelligence officer’s war memoir that the Pentagon contends threatened national security.

Pentagon spokesman Col. Dave Lapan said Monday that military officials last week watched as St. Martin’s Press pulped the audio books to be recycled.  WTOP

Technorati Tags: top secret audio books

HarperCollins Announces New Conservative free audiobooks

The largest publishing houses in the country have discovered that free audiobooks with a conservative political slant mean big money and sales. Simon & Schuster (CBS) can depend on its Threshold Editions imprint to spawn success from the likes of Glenn Beck, while Penguin (PSO) and Random House publish conservative books through imprints Sentinel and Crown Forum, respectively. So it’s no real surprise that HarperCollins (NWS) has finally jumped aboard a crowded bandwagon with the January 2011 launch of Broadside Books, a new imprint spearheaded by Adam Bellow, who told the New York Times he considers himself “a conservative in a liberal industry.” PCSpeed.net

Free Audio Books Lovers Flock To National Mall For Festival

On Saturday September 25th, free audio books lovers from far and wide will once again gather on the National Mall for Washington D.C’s 10th annual National Book Festival. This year, the festival is celebrating its tenth anniversary with the appropriate headline of “A Decade of Words and Wonder”.

The Library of Congress, along with honorary chairs President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama are offering this free, one of a kind opportunity to meet with some of the country’s best authors, poets and illustrators.CUA

Technorati Tags: free audio books

Are free Audio Books and ebooks good for books?

At present only 8% of the reading public in the US use free audio books of some sort, but among the 2,775 US adults in the survey 12% said they were thinking of getting one in the next 12 months.

Owning an eReader also made people more likley to buy books. About 20% of eReader owners admitted to buying 21 or more books in the past year, which is double the rate for the general public. The best interpretation of these results is that avid free audio books buyers also buy eReaders. However ebooks still only make up 3% of total book sales – but this is expected to quadruple in the next four years.  iProgrammer

U.S. Kindle Store Now Has Over 700,000 audiobooks and Books

This morning, Amazon released a small update to its Android app,This morning, Amazon released a small update to its Android app, including free audiobooks and a Wikipedia dictionary. Hidden in the release was another interesting stat—the U.S. Kindle Store now has over 700,000 books. This is up from 670,000 books three weeks ago.

It seems like Amazon is adding books to the Kindle store at a steady pace; As of the end of April, the store had 500,000 titles. The U.K. store only has 400,000 titles, as of our last report. Barnes and Noble claims to have 1 million titles for purchase. his morning, Amazon released a small update to its Android app, including voice search and a Wikipedia dictionary. Hidden in the release was another interesting stat—the U.S. Kindle Store now has over 700,000 books. This is up from 670,000 books three weeks ago.

Free audio books jump off the page with digital enhancements

When The Search for WondLa, the start of a fantasy trilogy for kids starring a 12-year-old girl raised by a robot on an alien planet, is published today in free audio books format, it will include three symbols that link to digital maps of the girl’s quest for other humans.

Readers with a webcam can see 3-D interactive maps of the girl’s search. Readers without a webcam but access to the Internet can link to a regular map and a video via the free audio books.  PCSpeed.net

Technorati Tags: free audio books

Authors Level the Playing Field in a Changing the AudioBooks industry?

With the advent of the Kindle and other digital alternatives to audiobooks, the publishing industry is having its share of struggles. Major bookstores are closing locations, while publishers are cutting back the number of releases and reducing author advances. As early as 2006, audiobooks store sales had begun to fall and have yet to rebound.  Atlanta Press

Technorati Tags: authors audiobooks

How do you have a book signing with audio books?

Can we make the supply chain more efficient and give people incentive to change and have audio books model from writer to reader? Can we change the entire process, which for the last 25 years or more begins with acquiring content and ends with cocktail parties?

But this could change as tech-savvy young people were found to be reading less printed materials because they choose to read from the Web. Gonzales acknowledged that reading preferences and habits are turning out to be a case of generation gap. In fact, much to conference attendees’ surprise, the gap is apparently quite wide when another keynote speaker, J. Kirby West, an American book supply chain expert, said his son told him that “Amazon is for old people.”  PCSpeed.net

Google’s New Route to Your Wallet not free audiobooks Music