march 2023 News Roundup
This Month, enjoy an NPR audiobook comic strip, predictions for advertising-in-audio listening experiences, the love of narration and listening, the growth of Welsh and Spanish markets, new offerings in Poland and Bengal, ethical considerations of AI, praise of the human voice and the possibilities of human voices and AI living in… support of one another. In addition, tune your earpods to a couple notable audiobook offerings.
Comic: How audiobooks enable the shared experience of listening to a good story
NPR shares a Kate Wheeler multi-panel graphic story of how audiobooks supplanted TV-watching for her and her brother in their childhood home. [Source: npr.org]
Three Predictions For Audio Advertising In The Year Ahead
With changes in subscription models for audio, Forbes predicts advertising will play a role in capturing market share. [Source: forbes.com]
Robert Fass sHARES His experience with the audiobook narration process
In an interview format, Fass explains, "You can be fully in the performance, but you also need to be aware of what the narrative arc is, how you’re going to modulate how you’re going to get to the climax or to the main points. If it’s non-fiction it still has a narrative arc." [Source: bookandfilmglobe.com]
National Audiobook Challenge Celebrates Record Numbers of Students Reading Across America
The finale of Learning Ally’s award-winning audiobook challenge, Great Reading Games, coincides with Read Across America, and is designed to support teachers who encourage at-risk students to read. [Source: finance.yahoo.com]
Audiobooks Have Slowly Taken Over My Life, and I Love It
Bridget McGovern often feels more immersed and focused on the world of a story when she’s doing mindless or repetitive tasks like knitting, washing dishes, or taking a long walk than when she’s forced to sit and focus on the pages in front of her. [Source: tor.com]
FEED YOUR EARPODS
Meryl Streep to Narrate Big Tree Audiobook for Scholastic
Lori Benton, Scholastic Audio President, praises the way Brian Selznick's Big Tree illuminates and celebrates connections, across generations, with nature and with the wider world. Together with Streep, this will make for an unforgettable listening experience. [Source: marketscreener.com]
Rainbow History Class Takes Queer & Trans Stories From TikTok To Audiobook
Co-created by Hannah McElhinney and Rudy Jean Rigg, Rainbow History Class started as an Aussie TikTok account to share LGBTQIA+ stories from history that can inspire and validate the queer and trans communities, and is now available as an audiobook with a bonus chapter with the authors. [Source: centennialbeauty.com]
BEYOND ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Amdani Welsh-language series to be made available as audiobooks
The popularity of the Amandi series supports the mission of the National Centre for Learning Welsh, which is to create opportunities for learners to enjoy using Welsh outside the classroom. [Source: thebookseller.com]
Spanish Audiobook Market Soars
According to a new report by Javier Celaya and his digital consultancy Dosdoce, based in Bilbao, Spain, the Spanish audio market has registered an ongoing double-digit annual increase in sales in the last ten years. [Source: languagemagazine.com]
Startups & new offerings
ShunBoi: The startup feeding the hunger for Bangla audiobooks
As Bitul Boishnob, Shunboi co-founder with Shahariar Hridoy, devoured audiobooks during “those lazy days of the pandemic” and noticed the gap in the market for high-quality, professionally narrated Bangla audiobooks, he felt the urge to do something to fill this gap. [Source: tbsnews.net]
Poland’s Draga Group Announces an Audiobook Platform
The Norwegian developer of audiobook platforms, Beat Technology, is creating a new service, ‘Volume,’ for Poland’s Sonia Draga Publishing Group. Draga, the first woman vice-president of the Federation of European Publishers and president of the Polish Chamber of Books, thinks the operation will be of interest to sister publishers in Poland. [Source: publishingperspectives.com]
A.I.
How Audiobooks Highlight the Importance of Ethical and Explainable AI
Aaron Back, Chief Content Officer for Acceleration Economy, discusses the muddy waters of ethical artificial intelligence, using a case with audiobook narrators as an example of why explainable AI is critical in contracts. [Source: accelerationeconomy.com]
Readers are dubious about AI audiobooks
"Human readers, unite!" wrote a New Brighton reader. Take a peek at a variety of listeners using their human voices to defend human voices. [Source: startribune.com]
Audiobooks Are Thriving, but Could AI Take Over?
CNET provides a thoughtful discourse, including commentary from AI developers and human narrators alike, on the possibility of co-existing and even… in a perfect world… supporting one another. [Source: cnet.com]