Red Wheel/Weiser, a publisher of titles on mind-body-spirit and the occult, is joining with Dreamscape Media, an audio book production house and distributor, to launch Red Wheel Audio, a multi-year audiobook program.
Beginning November 24, Red Wheel Audio will begin to release about 15 audiobook titles per year. Forthcoming titles will include backlist and frontlist titles from across RW/W’s imprints—which include Weiser, Career Press, Dharma Spring, Red Wheel, and New Page Books—as well as from its distribution partner, Hampton Roads. The initial releases will be produced in the digital and CD/MP3 CD formats, and will be available for preorder on Amazon, Audible, and iTunes.
Dreamscape Media acquisitions director Michael Olah said in a statement that the company is "excited to produce and distribute [Red Wheel/Weiser's] new releases and bestselling backlist titles in audio format.” The complete Red Wheel Audio catalog will be made available to library patrons via Hoopla Digital, a streaming media platform owned by Dreamscape Media parent company Midwest Tape, which provides a wide variety of digital content to public libraries.
The first Red Wheel Audio title to be released will be The Divine Spark: Psychedelics, Consciousness, and the Birth of Civilization, edited by Graham Hancock and written by a group of 22 authors. Coming in December is Odin: Ecstasy, Runes, & Norse Magic by Diana Paxson and, in 2021, Italian Folk Magic: Rue's Kitchen Witchery by Mary-Grace Fahrun.
Red Wheel/Weiser president Michael Kerber said this is RW/W's first venture into audiobook publishing. "Expanding into audio publishing is one of the important initiatives we're developing in response to changes in the market for print and digital content," he said in a statement. "We're experiencing very high demand across our imprints and we want to be able to offer our books in any format and by whatever means people want to access them."
