DECEMBER 2022 News Roundup
This month’s news abounds: read about the cultural considerations and business models highlighted at FutureBook and at a new startup in Sweden, what it takes to cultivate a career as a skilled narrator, various benefits of listening to audiobooks from early learning literacy to preserving bardic traditions and get updates on the popularity and trends of audiobook consumption in the UK, Romania, France and the exciting preservation of story and language in East African and Arabic collections.
Encouraging Innovation at FutureBook
At The Bookseller’s FutureBook conference, a panel encouraged delegates to innovate their audiobook models and make choices based on listeners’ data. [Source: publishingperspectives.com]
What it's like to be an audiobook narrator
Hillary Huber shares what goes into cultivating a career as a successful audiobook narrator. [Source: businessinsider.com]
Podcasting, Audiobooks, and the Third Thing
Tom Webster explores what podcasting and audiobooks could learn from each other. [Source: soundsprofitable.com]
Improve K–12 Literacy with Next-Gen Reading Tools
Learning to read once hinged on traditional hard-copy books, but now there are far more tools at an educators’ disposal. [Source: edtechmagazine.com]
NBC news weighs in - of course audiobooks count as reading
Judi Ketteler says, "some of the most divine experiences I had devouring books this year happened because I was listening to them." [Source: nbcnews.com]
WIRED’s spiritual advice columnist on bardic traditions for a modern age
Oral storytelling predates writing by millennia, and many of the oldest stories in our literary canon existed for centuries as bardic tales before they were put down in print. [Source: wired.com]
BEYOND THE US
UK audiobook sales growth slows
The drop in purchases cannot be entirely attributed to the increased cost of living, as the pandemic accelerated the growth. [Source: booksandpublishing.com]
Audiobooks in Romanian gaining popularity
More than 130,000 listened to at least one audiobook in Romanian in the past year. [Source: romania-insider.com]
The time is right for Arab storytellers to embrace audiobooks
In the MENA region the market for audiobook publishing is also gaining momentum, thanks to enhancements to broadband connections and a proliferation of exciting titles and talented narrators. [Source: arabnews.com]
Mohamed Hassan: Man on a quest to promote East Africa's literature internationally
The application, known as Kitab Cloud, is set to bring back the disappearing African literature to preserve indigenous languages. [Source: standardmedia.co.ke]
Bookwire in France: A ‘New’ Audiobook Market
Although the audiobook market in France is still young, digital growth is increasing, with 800,000 more audiobook readers in 2022. [Source: publishingperspectives.com]
Swedish startup Sesamy seeks to slaughter the subscription model
So far, the Stockholm-based company has partnered with every major book publisher in Sweden and Denmark to offer users the option to purchase digital content as a single purchase. [Source: thenextweb.com]