Thursday, August 14, 2008

Audible launches IndieFirst


Yesterday’e Bookseller Bulletin covered a interesting piece on Audible’s launch of a new imprint service ‘IndieFirst’ which aims to publish the work from independent publishers one month ahead of their print release.

This raises several opportunities as it becomes the first release of the title and could be used to promote the print release with more than just a ‘Search Inside’ as well as sell the audiobook. It clearly moves Audible into the publishing stage and would due to their current proprietary format and DRM give them exclusive material to sell and promote on iTunes and Audible.com. The programme will also "introduce book lovers to new and emerging writers".

The venture is in collaboration with the Centre for Independent Publishing to publish work from independent publishers and the first title is Joe Meno's Demons in the Spring, an unabridged 8 hour collection of 20 stories narrated by Victor Bevine, which will be published in print by New York-based Akashic Books in September. Three other titles are listed for realese.

This is a very logical and interesting move by the Amazon owned company and should both further strengthen their hold on the audio market and ties with independent publishers, provide fresh content and potentially introduce new marketing material to promote the physical and audio books.

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