For a while it seemed like smartspeakers were the new black of digital audio, driving sales ever higher. But a new study by Score Publishing suggests all is not well in the smartspeaker market, with book-related search queries at best delivering accurate results only 72.5% of the time, and the one we’d expect to do Read More …
Audible, like CreateSpace, began life independently of Amazon, and by the time Amazon acquired them both, these two savvy publishing ventures had carved niches that, for the longest while, Amazon was happy to leave alone. Everyone was happy. But Audible, an ambitious, globally-minded operation, soon found that its international aspirations were beholden to Amazon’s roadmap. Read More …
Unsurprisingly, audiobooks have been a hot topic at the London Book Fair, which finishes today, but it wasn’t the usual suspects, Audible and Storytel, that grabbed the headlines. The Bookseller’s Audiobook producer of the Year Award went to an audio outfit in the United Arab Emirates, which may come as a surprise to those who Read More …
One of the biggest gripes about Amazon’s ACX, the self-publishing arm of Audible and very much the go to place for indie authors to distribute their audiobooks, is that Amazon calls the shots on pricing. Among the many appeals of new kid on the block Findaway is that the author has a semblance of control. Read More …
This is a translation of an original article by Daniel Kotliński, which can be found here. An entertainment platform, not a bookstore with a subscription option. Prospects and plans for the development of the Storytel brand. Like storytelling itself, audio has limitless possibilities. Does an application for audio materials that has been out on the Polish market Read More …
Founded in 2015 by former Penguin Random House global digital director Molly Barton and co-founder Julian Yap, Serial Box is just one more example in a never ending list of digital operators that are stealing readers from mainstream bookstores and online stores, creating the fallacy that people are reading less. Serial Box is a clever play on Read More …
It all seemed so implausible at the start of this decade. Ebooks had officially arrived, thanks to Amazon’s Kindle store breathing life into a format that had been around since long before. But it was just a digital extension of the status quo retail model. It was printed books on a screen, not remotely exploring digital’s Read More …
We won’t know the full story for Storytel 2018 until April, but the Q4 results are out and include an overview of the year, and a clear picture is emerging of consistent and sustainable growth, driven by digital. As I’ll explore in a follow-up report on the Swedish book market, what we are seeing in Read More …
The Swedish government has finally announced its digital VAT plans, and as from July 1 digital services like ebooks, audiobooks and news will be subject to just 6% VAT, instead of the current 25%. The logical next step, one might think, would be for prices to fall in line with the VAT reduction, but as Read More …
Brazilian audiobook firm Ubook is preparing for an IPO in Canada that will value the company at anywhere from USD $8 – $15 million as CEO Flavio Osso looks to expand Ubook’s operations further into Europe. UPDATE: Flavio Osso points out that “The range from 8 to 15 million dollars is the the target amount Read More …
Cupido is a Norwegian site dedicated to all things sensual, and now that includes podcasts. This month Cupido is launching what apparently translates as Cupido Handsfree – a great double-entendre if accurate. To mark the event Cupido tells us that 4,500 of Storytel’s 100,000 titles are categorized as “sensual”, referencing a report in the left-wing Norwegian Read More …
Germany-based Bookwire has reported 65% sales growth and a 25% increase in titles registered for its Spain and Latin America market venture. The increase in Spanish-language titles was to the tune of 33,000, while for Portuguese-speaking Brazil the number of titles rose 40% to 32,000. Bookwire also announced its venture into the audiobook arena. Elena Read More …
It sometimes seems like the US book market and the rest of the world are on different planets. “Capitalizing on Book Publishing Trends in 2019” is the title of a free webinair from Book Business later this month. I did think about signing up, but when they wanted my address and telephone number as compulsory Read More …
It all seemed so improbable just a few years ago, when many believed Scribd would follow Oyster into oblivion as Amazon moved into the ebook subscription game. And then of course there’s all that nonsense about how people are reading less nowadays and how the digital reading fad has faded and how… By the logic Read More …
Sweden’s banking and finance company Avanza has long offered financial advice via podcasts, so it was only natural that, when Storytel cast its eye over the Swedish audio landscape for untapped niches it should alight on the private finance sector. Storytel takes the next step in its commitment to business literature by launching a unique Read More …
Podcasts are a great way of reaching consumers with shortform audio, without the full expense that comes with producing an audiobook, and in the US, reports Poland’s Weekend Gazeta, podcasts have been elevated to an art form. In the United States…the releases of subsequent seasons of iconic productions are an event no less than the Read More …
While the end of year results are not yet known, audiobook revenues doubled in Finland up until September 2018, standing at 2.5 million euros ($2.8 million) and accounting for 3% of total book sales. Market leader Bookbeat, part of Sweden’s Bonnier, as reported here recently had 150,000 subscribers at end 2019, and Finland’s M&M says 70,000 Read More …
Regulars here at TNPS will not have been surprised that Rakuten OverDrive last year surpassed the quarter billion download mark, serving 274 million digital books to eager consumers through its global library distribution service. While the USA is by far the bigger client country of OverDrive we should remember that the company delivers digital books Read More …
Storytel issued a press release today to say it had beaten its forecast for both subscribers and revenue in Q4, with an average 768,700 paying subscribers across its fifteen markets, up almost 48,000 on Q3. Streaming revenue just beat the forecast, coming in at SEK 291.3 million ($32 million) for Q4, of which SEK 140 Read More …
Swedish streaming service Bookbeat may have put the UK on hold, but it’s still battling for market share in Finland, Germany and homeland Sweden, with Finland performing well. In an interview with Sweden’s Boktugg, Bookbeat CEO Niclas Sandin intimated he expected more growth from Germany in 2019 and that together Germany and Finland might exceed Read More …
