CDs, CDs Everywhere
Trudi M. Rosenblum -- 8/7/00
The fall audio list shows CDs gaining in popularity
with more CD titles than ever before
On the Fall Audio Announcements list (Adult Audio for Fall 2000; Children's Audio/Video for Fall 2000), one word keeps popping up: CD. In recent years, publishers had begun putting selected titles on CD. But now the trend is gaining momentum, with some publishers putting as much as two-thirds of their fall audio titles on CD.
"With all the publishers I talk to, it appears that anything that might be a strong seller will be available in both formats," said Paul Rush, president of the Audio Publishers Association.
Simon & Schuster is among the most aggressive in this area: of the 70 S&S audio titles coming out this fall, 52 will be available on CD. "The CD market is definitely expanding and growing," said Patricia Keim, S&S associate director of marketing.
However, Keim noted, CD sales vary widely depending on the title. When a title is available in both formats, CDs can account for anywhere from 14% to 40% of unit sales, Keim said.
Audio Bits
Penton Overseas sales are up, New Millennium wins Tan,
and NYU Offers Audiobook Course...
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Random House AudioBooks has 21 new titles this fall, with 12 available on CD. "We're definitely seeing an increase in CD sales," said Mary Beth Roche, v-p/director of publicity. "The number of CDs sold is proportionately still small compared to cassettes, but we're seeing it as a real area of growth in the bookstores, especially in stores like Barnes & Noble that have created special CD sections." Roche adds that when Random House publishes a book in both formats, the CD represents about 25% of the total printing.
 | The Rescue will be available in four formats;
Harper shipped equal numbers
of CDs and cassettes of Caedmon |
With abridged CDs finding acceptance with bookstores and listeners, two new innovations are beginning to appear: unabridged CDs and CD-only titles. Time Warner AudioBooks will release Nicholas Sparks's upcoming The Rescue in four formats: abridged and unabridged cassette and abridged and unabridged CD. "The Rescue is our lead title," explained Maja Thomas, executive director of Time Warner AudioBooks. "It's a very universal story, with appeal to both men and women, so we feel that everyone will want it. Also, it's not a very long book, so that makes an unabridged CD more feasible."
In January, Random House will publish its first CD-only title: The Future of Success by Robert Reich, based on his forthcoming Knopf title. "Certain business titles do very well on CD; that audience seems to be more likely to have cars with CD players," Roche said.
Classics, too, are CD friendly. In fact, Harper's Caedmon P try Collection shipped equal amounts of CDs and cassettes, and Harper is experimenting with CD-only releases for some long-out-of-print Caedmon titles.
Backlist titles, too, are beginning to show up more frequently on CD. Brilliance Audio's bestselling Tuesdays with Morrie will appear on CD this fall. Simon & Schuster is reissuing many of its popular business and self-improvement titles on CD. "We do about two CD reissues of business titles a month, and they're doing fabulously," said Keim. Audio Renaissance is putting seven backlist bestsellers on CD and will release selected new titles on CD. Commuters Library of Falls Church, Va., is reissuing many of its backlist titles on CD, as well as creating "best of" CDs featuring short stories culled from backlist audio collections.
Blackstone Audio puts out about eight titles per month on CD, mixing frontlist and backlist titles. Blackstone currently has 105 CD titles. "I resisted for two or three years," said Blackstone president Craig Black. "People in my office were encouraging me to do it, but I kept saying there was little demand. But then I started getting so many e-mail messages from customers saying, 'My new car only has a CD player.'"
Not all publishers are jumping into the CD market with both feet. Some prefer to take a wait-and-see approach. "We're dipping a t into the water," said Eileen Hutton, v-p of editorial for Brilliance, which has five titles on CD this fall including the Morrie reissue. "We're being cautious and conservative, because we're getting mixed messages from different stores and different channels of distribution. So we're starting with a few titles. In 2001, we'll speed it up and put a heavier investment in CDs as we see how the reception is."
Time Warner has a similar strategy, with only two CD titles out this fall. "We wanted to start gingerly and see if the accounts were willing to take CDs," said Maja Thomas. "Now that we see the accounts are taking them, we'll do more for spring."
J McNeeley, associate publisher of Audio Renaissance, questions whether the demand for CDs is as strong as it seems. "I'm glad the chains are setting up CDs in a separate section; I think that will help the growth of the CD market for audiobooks. But I think only time will tell how strong that market really is."
McNeeley theorizes that different formats will be stocked at different types of retailers. "The major chains have now opened themselves up so much to unabridged, they're tending to take the unabridged tape and the abridged CD. They're not buying the abridged cassette version as much because it's a lower price point. Instead, price clubs and mass merchants like Wal-Mart, Target and the like are starting to become a strong audio market because they carry the abridged cassettes, and the price-conscious buyer is going there, while Barnes & Noble and Walden are catering to someone who's willing to spend the larger bucks for unabridged or CD. The question is, if someone wants the abridged cassette and can't get it at the bookstore, will it be a lost sale? Will he buy the unabridged cassette or CD instead? Or will he go elsewhere?"
The increasing number of formats has created some problems for the audio industry, as multiple versions of one title take up shelf space that formerly housed several different titles. "I wish when these buyers decide to move into a new stream, that they'd look deeper into the publishers' lists, instead of just looking at more formats," said McNeeley.
Despite the CD inroads, cassettes still continue to dominate the audiobook market. Simon & Schuster's Patricia Keim estimates that only 5% of the company's audio revenue came from CDs in 1999.
The Audio Publishers Association, in conjunction with the International Recording Media Association, is planning meetings with the major car manufacturers to make the case for continuing to install cassette players in new cars.
"The next five to 10 years will be a real juggling act for audio," McNeeley said. "The formats could proliferate. Right now they're manufacturing all these digital players and expecting people to download onto them, but maybe the time will come where you insert a digital chip or a card and listen that way. It will really be the consumer who decides how they want to listen."
Click Here for Adult Audio for Fall 2000
Click Here for Children's Audio/Video for Fall 2000
Penton Overseas Sales Up in 1999Sales at Penton Overseas were up 55% for the fiscal year ending Jan. 31, 2000, according to company president Hugh Penton Sr. Penton attributes the sales increase to "the large number of new product lines that we've developed and are now publishing, as well as entering into new marketing channels." Best known for its foreign-language programs, Penton Overseas recently formed alliances with John Wiley & Sons and Lonely Planet Publishing. Penton will publish 20 new business audiobooks under the imprint Wiley Audio and has produced 17 TravelTalk programs in cooperation with Lonely Planet. The company's Smart Kids Publishing division of print books has expanded into audiobooks with 12 titles from the Teach Your Children Values series by Linda and Richard Eyre. Penton also distributes audiobooks and videos from 50 publishers into the trade and warehouse market.
New Millennium Wins Tan
 | | Amy Tan's newest is due in 2001. |
After a fierce bidding war, New Millennium won audio rights to Amy Tan's upcoming novel The Bonesetter's Daughter for a "mid-six-figure" sum, said New Millennium president Michael Viner. The audiobook will be released in February 2001 on four cassettes and will be read by the author.
Audible's Flat-Rate PlansAudible Inc. is introducing AudibleListener, three flat-rate plans for customers. (Customers can also continue to buy audio downloads on a per-title basis.) The Light Listener plan allows the customer to choose any two audio titles for $9.95 a month. With the Frequent Listener plan, the customer can download up to five audio titles for $19.95 a month. On the Serious Listener plan, the customer pays $29.95 a month and can select up to five titles, as well as gain unlimited access to the audible.com Subscription Center that features a wide selection of both new and archived newspapers, magazines and public-radio programs.
"AudibleListener will augment conventional a la carte shopping for audio titles with flat-rate models that will change the way our listeners think about, shop for and consume the spoken word from audible.com," stated Thomas Baxter, president and chief executive officer of Audible Inc. "A program such as the Frequent Listener service can offer our customers--depending upon selection--more than one hundred dollars' worth of audio for just $19.95."
In Their Own Words
 | Sneak a peek at Shirley
reading Camino |
Purists who enjoying listening to or watching authors read their own works appreciated efforts by Random House and Simon & Schuster. For April Is P try Month, Random House worked with the Bertelsmann Foundation to donate 1,000 copies of audiobooks in the Voice of the P t series to New York City schools. The recordings feature Elizabeth Bishop, Anne Sexton and Robert Lowell reading their work.
Meanwhile, S&S's Web site, www.simonsays.com, featured a video clip of Shirley MacLaine in the studio recording her new audiobook, The Camino.
NYU Offers Audiobook Course For the first time, New York University's Center for Publishing will offer a continuing-education course on audiobook publishing. The 10-week course provides an overview of audio publishing: rights negotiation, production, packaging, sales and marketing and spoken-word audio on the Internet. Alisa Weberman, cofounder of Listen & Live Audio, will teach the class, which is scheduled for the fall semester. Guest lecturers and a visit to a Manhattan recording studio are planned.
Sounds True Creates Online InstituteSounds True has launched iCourses, a series of online classes that use the Internet to connect students to their instructor for a live class. Each student is given a pass code to enter the classroom, where he or she has access to exclusive course material and live lectures. The students can ask questions, which are fielded by a moderator who passes them on to the instructor, who responds live. Each iCourse includes three to four sessions, course materials such as study guides and audio cassettes, and open forums with other students. Tuition ranges from $145 to $225 per course. Instructors include authors Caroline Myss and Lama Surya Das.
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