Search for a member:
Audio News — June 2009
Hay Festival / Children’s Audio promotion May 2009
The APA in conjunction with Midas pr, scheduled a series of live recordings of children’s audiobooks as part of Hay Fever at Hay Festival in May. Here is a report from Midas on how the event went;
Audiobook engineer Peter Rinne and Ann Bissell from Midas PR spent a fun-filled few days at Hay Festival this year, recording live audiobooks with some of the nation’s best-loved children’s storytellers: Julia Donaldson, Polly Dunbar, Kristina Stephenson, Caroline Lawrence and Michael Morpurgo.
The sold-out events were attended by between 30 and 40 children and their parents, and lasted approximately 30 minutes. Each event began with an introduction to the story and to the concept of an audiobook, followed by a rehearsal of the story. The events ended with an interactive recording, incorporating the children into the story, either as an individual character - for example a roaring lion in The Gladiators of Capua – or as sound effects – for example a windy windy staircase – in Kristina Stephenson’s Sir Charlie Stinky Socks.
Feedback so far has been brilliant. Peter Florence, Director of Hay Festivals, thought the events were ‘terrific’ and was delighted for audiobooks to be included in the festival programme. Sophie Lording, Director of Hay Fever (the children’s festival) said the response from the parents had been overwhelming, and is thrilled to have some quality and original audio content for Hay’s website to illustrate not only the diversity of events at Hay, but also how the many ways in which literature can be presented.
Midas PR are currently placing the live audiobooks with online media and will send links to listen to the events once serialisation has been confirmed.
For more information, please contact Ann Bissell ann.bissell@midaspr.co.uk
The APA will be working with Midas again, to promote adult audio at Cheltenham festival in October.
Promoting links with Non-traditional Outlets – Working Party. Volunteers needed!
We have a new working party - with the following aims and objectives;
The APA committee has discussed setting up a Working Party to look at the wider market of audiobook & spoken word users, outside of the “high street retail” mainstream.
This market particularly includes libraries and institutions such as schools, hospitals and prisons that value audio both as entertainment and as an educational tool.
The new working party is tasked with assessing the established links individual publishers currently have with these markets and seeing how this disparate information can be combined and shared, as well as stronger links forged between the industry and the users.
This WP will collate information from publishers, charities and user groups to see how the links could be intensified and how technology could develop this under-developed market.
Any members interested in joining this working party please contact us for further information info@theapa.net
2009 Promotion – The Best Audiobooks Of The Year
The 2009 Audiobook promotion will run in-store, online and throughout libraries during July and August. The promotion will feature the following 40 audiobooks;
| New titles | |||
| CSA Word | A Room With a View | E. M Forster | Juliet Stevenson |
| Naxos | The Road | Cormac McCarthy | Rupert Degas |
| Macmillan | Revelation | C. J. Sansom | Anton Lesser |
| Hachette Digital | Tea Time for the Traditionally Built | Alexander McCall Smith | Adjoa Andoh |
| Orion | The White Tiger | Aravind Adiga | Kerry Shale |
| Orion | Past Imperfect | Julian Fellowes | Julian Fellowes |
| Orion | The Brass Verdict | Michael Connelly | Michael Brandon |
| Penguin | Devil May Care | Sebastian Faulks (writing as Ian Fleming) | Jeremy Northam |
| BBC | Paul Temple and the Front Page Men | Durbridge, Francis | Head, Anthony |
| Harper Collins | Slumdog Millionaire | Vikas Swarup | Kerry Shale |
| BBC | Doctor Who: Pest Control (audio exclusive story) | Anghelides, Peter | Tennant, David |
| Random House | Dear Fatty | Dawn French | Liza Tarbuck |
| Hachette Digital | The Last Fighting Tommy | Harry Patch with Richard Van Emden | Alan Howard |
| Orion | Wake Up and Change Your Life | Duncan Bannatyne | David Rintoul |
| Bloomsbury | The Suspicions of Mr Whicher | Kate Summerscale | Harriet Walter |
| Canongate | Dreams From My Father | Barack Obama | Barack Obama |
| BBC | I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue Live: Vol 2 | Radio Soundtrack | Clue team |
| Bloomsbury | The Graveyard Book | Neil Gaiman | Neil Gaiman |
| Harper Collins | The Boy In The Dress | David Walliams | David Walliams and Matt Lucas |
| Harper Collins | Paddington Here and Now | Michael Bond | Stephen Fry |
| Back catalogue top 20 | |||
| Harper Collins | Murder of Roger Ackroyd/on Orient Express | Agatha Christie | Hugh Fraser |
| Orion | Exit Music | Ian Rankin |
|
| Naxos | Sense and Sensibility | Jane Austen | Juliet Stevenson |
| Naxos | Great Expectations | Charles Dickens | Anton Lesser |
| BBC | The Fellowship of the Ring | J.R Tolkein |
|
| Random House | Birdsong | Sebastian Faulks | Samuel West |
| Random House | Curious Incident Of The Dog In the Night-Time | Mark Haddon | Ben Tibber |
| BBC | The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Primary Phase | Douglas Adams |
|
| CSA Word | Uncle Fred in The Springtime | P. G. Wodehouse | Martin Jarvis |
| Harper Collins | The Life of Pi | Yann Martel | Kerry Shale |
| Naxos | The Essential Dylan Thomas | Dylan Thomas | Philip Madoc et al |
| Naxos | A Bad Birdwatcher's Companion | Simon Barnes | Simon Barnes |
| Macmillan | History of Modern Britain | Andrew Marr | Andrew Marr |
| BBC | America, Empire of Liberty: Vol 1, Liberty and Slavery | Reynolds, David | Reynolds, David |
| BBC | Talking Heads No.1 | Alan Bennett |
|
| Naxos | Othello | William Shakespeare | Full Cast |
| CSA Word | Brideshead Revisited | Evelyn Waugh | Jeremy Northam |
| Orion | Horrid Henry's Stinkbomb | Francesca Simon |
|
| Macmillan | The Gruffalo | Julia Donaldson | Imelda Staunton |
| Naxos | The Sword in the Stone | T. H. White | Neville Jason |
Listeners will be able to vote for their favourite promoted titles at www.20bestaudiobooks.com. The overall ‘audiobook of the year’ will be announced early October.
Submitted titles were judged for selection by an independent panel of retailers and reviewers. The promotion is organised by Agile Marketing in association with The Book Marketing Society, The APA & Midas pr.
2009/2010 APA Resources Directory
The new directory has been printed and has been sent out to all our members. Please get in touch if you would like more copies.
APA Website Members Database
Members’ entries have now been updated so please check your entry and let us know if anything needs to be corrected.
Voice-clips on the APA website
Actor/readers have the option to include sample voice-clips on their web entry. If you would like to add a voice-clip to your listing – please contact Laura for information on suitable length and format.
Website suggestions please!
The APA website is due for a makeover – please let us know if you have any suggestions on how we can improve. Current suggestions are an audio industry blog page, a publishers quarterly review page, members only sections with access to previous minutes, party details etc., news archive featuring media articles. Please let us have your suggestions and comments.
New Members
We are delighted to welcome the following new members to the APA:
Rebekah Germain - Actor tombeckygermain@hotmail.com
Elsie Normington - Actor elsien@uwclub.net / www.voice123.com/elsienormington
Tim Bruce - Actor tim.bruce@ntlworld.com
Maggie Mash - Actor mashmaggie@hotmail.com
Tania Rodrigues - Actor t.rodrigues@virgin.net
Hugh Harrison - Actor hughstandishharrison@hotmail.com
Richard Gibson – Actor/Abridger rich@rdgibson.com
Veronica Gardiner – Producer mail@veronicagardiner.co.uk
Crimefest Sounds of Crime Awards
Congratulations to the winners of this year’s Crimefest (International Crime Fiction Convention) Awards!
Best Abridged Crime Audiobook of 2008 is a tie between:
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. Reader: Martin Wenner. Publisher: Quercus
and Doors Open by Ian Rankin. Reader: James Macpherson. Publisher: Orion
Best Unabridged Crime Audiobook of 2008 is:
-
When Will There Be Good News by Kate Atkinson. Reader: Steven Crossley. Publisher: BBC Audio.
For more information on Crimefest visit http://www.crimefest.com
Membership renewals
Please remember to pay promptly when you receive your membership renewal invoice, to avoid time (and therefore money) being spent on sending reminder renewal invoices. If you don’t wish to renew, please inform us of your decision, info@theapa.net
Submissions
If you wish to submit an article for inclusion in the next issue of Audio News, please email Laura at info@theapa.net