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Audio News March 2008
Executive Committee news
At the committee meeting of 28 February, the committee elected Ali Muirden (Macmillan) as the APA’s new Chair, with Zoe Howes (Random House) as the new Vice-chair. Ali takes over from Jo Forshaw (Audiobooks Online) who held the post from April 2006 until the end of last year. As you all know, Jo instigated the current major changes within the APA, but she also worked tirelessly behind the scenes for the APA and the committee would like to thank Jo for her huge contribution. Jo was also the driving force behind the upcoming audiobook promotion and deserves credit for this major campaign to raise the profile of audio.
Committee meeting minutes: these will now be emailed out to the membership following ratification by the committee at the next meeting. If you don’t receive APA emails but are able to, please contact Charlotte McCandlish to be added to the e-distribution list.
2008 BMS Audiobook Promotion
Details are now being finalised for this BMS-devised promotion! BMS are tying up a media-partner deal with a major national broadsheet, to run a “40 Best Audiobooks Ever” promotion with the idea that this will become an annual event. The promo will take place in July, but BMS are looking to launch it at the Hay Festival (last bank holiday in May). All retailers are on board with the project and several chains and internet retailers have confirmed they will run their own promos around this. The shortlist of 40 titles will be loosely based on the following categories: 8 fiction, 8 crime, 8 comedy/humour, 8 children’s and 8 non-fiction.
The 40 best audiobooks will be chosen by an independent panel of judges, and then promoted in the national broadsheet’s supplement and website, with the readers invited to vote for their favourite. Eligibility for this promo is limited to audiobooks published on CD only, but the supplement will contain articles about audiobooks, including issues such as downloads, unabridged/abridged, and rental.
Submission criteriab>
There is a detailed submission criteria which has now been emailed to all APA publishers (of physical product), but if you haven’t received this please contact Charlotte McCandlish for details a.s.a.p. – the submission deadline is 28th March. Key points to note initially are that only titles published on CD are eligible, and that only publishers (i.e. those who hold the copyright for the submitted title) may enter.
There is no entry fee but there will be a levy for each of the 40 shortlisted titles, to cover the marketing costs. BMS are in talks with various potential sponsors to help reduce the cost of this levy and the APA committee has agreed to contribute £5000 to pay for the cost of generic dumpbins – the committee unanimously agreed that this promotion is exactly the kind of project the APA should support in order to fulfil its aim of raising the profile of audiobooks.
This promotion is open to all audio publishers, not just those who are APA members. Announcements will be made in the trade press, but please feel free to pass this information on to other audio publishers who are not APA members.
2008/2009 APA Resources Directory
This is now being compiled and is expected to go to print next month. Once printed, copies will be sent out to all members. The APA website – www.theapa.net – will also be updated once the new/amended Directory entries have been compiled. Don’t forget that you can update your online entry at any point during the year should any essential details have changed (e.g. agent details, address, etc).
Broadband on mobile phones… The impact
An article by Andy McNab, bestselling author and shareholder of Spoken Entertainment Ltd
Jane is your average 2009 commuter. She walks to the station because petrol is now £2 a litre. The trains are delayed due to excessive leaves, wind or snow. But Jane is not concerned; a poster at the station tells her that the latest Martina Cole bestseller has just been launched. She types the link shown on the poster into her phone, accepts the purchase to her mobile phone account and before the train is at the station the audiobook is downloaded.
Broadband on mobile phones is alive and growing in the UK. All the UK networks are offering a technology called HSDPA (High Speed Download Packet Access). This basically means that surfing the web on your mobile using HSDPA is similar to the broadband speeds you are used to on your PC. Data plans are now available on all phone networks. For as little as £7 a month you can have unlimited access to the internet. The new breed of mobile phones has memory capacity of up to 8 GB. Our testing using HSDPA mobile phones demonstrated that a first-time customer could download and pay for a three hour audiobook in around six minutes. Vodafone at airports have already upgraded their system to 7.2 MB per second which will allow the audiobook to download in a third of the time.
Should you be excited? We think so
Research has shown that the mobile phone is now an essential piece of personal equipment. The majority of mobile users are happy using text and a growing percentage have used their mobile to access the mobile internet. As an interested party I regularly find myself counting the amount of people in the carriage with headsets on. This morning all four of the people I shared a carriage with were wearing headsets connected to a mobile phone or MP3 player. Mobile phones also have the added benefit of being able to purchase products simply and have them charged directly to your phone account.
This technology is a major step forward for the audiobook industry. We believe it also offers a marketing opportunity for new book advertising. An experiment we did with my latest book ‘Crossfire’ proved that people will follow a link on their mobile phone and purchase content direct from a poster or advert at the back of the book. A customer satisfaction survey revealed a very high level of satisfaction from customers who purchased in this way. Although this is yet to happen in great numbers, it shows that consumers will utilise their mobile phone to buy and enjoy content and this represents a further opportunity to sell and promote new titles as well as back lists.
We have been excited by this coming technology for a couple of years and have been developing a mobile website GoSpoken. Our product allows the customer to download chapters or an entire audiobook and to pay without the need to set up an account. GoSpoken will give publishers the ability to offer a mobile text code (MCNAB to 60300) and/or URL (andymcnab.gospoken.com) on all advertising. Customers will receive a text with a link to the author on the GoSpoken site where they can download the first chapter in audio or text and then go on to purchase the audiobook in its entirety. For more information on mobile downloads contact my colleague Rebecca Snook on 020 7749 5114 or rebecca.snook@spokengroup.com
New Members
We are delighted to welcome the following new members to the APA:
Penelope Rawlins – actress; e: penrawlins@yahoo.co.uk
Jo Daykin – producer; e: jo@jodaykin.co.uk
OK Media – duplicator; contact Doron Garfunkel; t: 020 7688 6789; m: 07712 899494; e: doron@okmedia.biz; www.okmedia.biz
Katy Loffman – digital consultant; e: katy@rightssolutions.biz; www.rightssolutions.biz
Martine Dunn – actress/producer; www.martinedunn.biz
David Forest – actor; www.davidforest.info
Emma Darwall-Smith – actress; e: emmadarwallsmith@hotmail.com
James Anderson – producer; e: james.anderson1986@ntlworld.com
Benbenbooks.com – small publisher; contact Ben Stagg; t: 020 7435 7425; m: 07887 732575; e: ben@benbenbooks.com; www.benbenbooks.com
Anna Lea – producer/abridger; e: annalea@live.co.uk
Liza Sadovy – actress; e: sadovy@btinternet.com
If you wish to submit an article for inclusion in the next issue of Audio News, please email Charlotte at info@theapa.net or call 07971 280788