New Audiobook Publisher Launches
June is the month that celebrates and brings awareness to audiobooks. Amy Rubinate, an award-winning audiobook narrator and voiceover actress,is taking the celebration of this medium to heart with the launch of her new audiobook publishing venture, Ideal Audiobooks, “an independent audiobook publisher with a focus on quality women’s fiction, romance, literary fiction, young adult and children’s books.”
The titles published by Ideal include a wide cast of notable women authors and women narrators who are committed to producing quality work that inspires readers and sets a precedent for the future of audiobook production.
Relicensing Offers New Opportunities
Publishers depend on bestsellers in the market to sustain the book business. It’s no secret that big hits like the Harry Potter, Hunger Games, or Fifty Shades of Grey series bring a few years of financial security to big companies. But it might be argued that depending on these hits is less than ideal, since nobody knows when they will arrive. It’s risky to do business based on an unknown.
In an article posted on Publishing Perspectives, Copyright Clearance Center’s Executive Director Michael Healy argues that publisher’s backlists offer a lot of opportunity for licensing content.
“A significant part of a publisher’s digital strategy should be a continuous refocusing on new ways to license and deliver content,” said Healy. “Such a focus can assure increases in revenue during times of transformation.”
Not only does relicensing offer new opportunities for previously published work, but it also offers opportunities for publishers to take part in an ever-widening world.
Year of Publishing Women: What the World Needs?
The disparity between the number of published male authors and female authors has been the topic of many discussions recently (and maybe not so recently). The battle for equal treatment and consideration of women in the publishing world is an issue that will impact generations to come, and Kamila Shamsie has called for a radical move that would bolster this movement and potentially change publishing for the better. A trustee of Free Word and English Pen, Shamsie suggests that 2018 become the Year of Publishing Women.
“The knock-on effect of a Year of Publishing Women would be evident in review pages and blogs, in bookshop windows and front-of-store displays, in literature festival lineups, in prize submissions,” she said. “We must learn from the suffragettes that it’s not always necessary or helpful to be polite about our campaigns.”
Perhaps it’s time for those in publishing to act outside the status quo, together. Could this kind of action create a tangible shift in the way books are published, reviewed, and awarded?
Any stories you think we should have covered? Mention them in the commentsbelow and we’ll give you a shout-out next week!
(Featured Image source: Ideal Audiobooks)
