Nerdfighters! Watch John Green talk about his new audiobook Paper Towns

John Green visited Brilliance Audio's recording of his new book Paper Towns - and gives you a video tour on his Nerfighter blog.

Friedman Freebie: The World is Flat!

Thomas Friedman is promoting his new book Hot Flat and Crowded by giving away the audiobook of his mega-bestseller The World is Flat for FREE. Grab it fast - the offer expires August 4th!

Image from http://www.thomaslfriedman.com

Who says YA audiobooks are dead? Maybe YA listeners are waiting for the death of CDs!

Are audiobooks dead media for teens? Au contraire! Random House Audio announces that Breaking Dawn will have an initial audio print run of 35,000 copies - admittedly less than the 3.2 million copy print run, but numbers that put a stake in the heart of nearly all adult titles. I will be interested to see the number of downloads of the much-anticipated August 2nd release that are purchased from Audible, iTunes, eMusic, or Random House. The comparison between Breaking Dawn CD sales and download sales will give a good snapshot of YA listening trends.

Most YAs I know don't own a CD player, and merely use an audiobook on CD as a vehicle to rip the title onto an MP3 player. Adults who look at the usage of audiobooks on CD to make assumptions about the potential for YA use of audiobooks neglect the reality of YA media use. For many YAs, the CD is just as dead as the cassette. Be sure to read the July 28 New York Times story Say So Long to an Old Companion: Cassette Tapes - good coverage of slow death of audiobooks on cassette, featuring Hachette's cassette wake. In the Times article, Recorded Book's Brian Downing predicts the cassette's last gasp will be in three year's time. Oddly, three years is my prediction of when cell phones will be the primary audiobook player.

So many predictions and marketing decisions about audiobooks are focused through an adult's eye - which, like my own, are often wearing reading glasses! I'd love to see more decisions based on the input of teens & kids - perhaps using the model of ALA's participation of teens in the deliberations of the Best Books for Young Adults committee meetings. Here's a great VOYA article on YALSA's Power of Radically Trusting Teens.

I've got a question that I will be asking my student audiobook listeners: "When you rip an audiobook on CD to your iPod as a single audio file, how do you feel about the side tag announcement?" I'm betting that the disruption of the audiobook by the announcement "This is the end of CD one" is a major annoyance for listeners who live totally in the digital world, and have not developed their audiobook listening habits on cassettes whose format necessitated such tags.

And just for fun... For those of you who have lost your heart to Edward:

Created by Mingle2.com (Dating for non-zombies)

MP3 players: Assessing Accessiblity

Do you plan to buy a new personal MP3 for your audiobook listening? Will you be adding iPods or Windows-based MP3 players to your public or school library collection for patron checkout, increasing your patron's use of subscription download services such as OverDrive or NetLibrary? Perhaps you are a classroom or special education teacher looking for a way to make use of the public library's free audiobook downloads by having MP3 players, a Sony E Reader or Kindle for student use. Be sure to take a look at these recommendations of mainstream audio players from the American Foundation for the Blind. Here's what the project is all about:

Thanks to grants from the Reader's Digest Partners for Sight Foundation and the Huntington Foundation, AFB TECH has been evaluating the accessibility of what we call portable media players. Our project has focused on using these players with digital music, books, and other sources of digital information. Apple's iPod is certainly the most well-known product in this category of devices, which are sometimes referred to as MP3 players or digital audio players. For this project, we gathered the current line of Apple iPods, but we also examined several other mainstream devices, including the Creative Technology line of players, the Microsoft Zune, the Sony Walkman and E Reader, the Amazon Kindle, and the Olympus DS-50 digital voice recorder.

Great information for any audio player user - with important accessibility issues to kind in mind.

Mac text file to iTunes audiobook file: Speak to iTunes

Here's something interesting. Computer Science PhD student Michael Tyson from Melbourne, Australia has created a program, Speak to iTunes, that will convert a text file to an AAC encoded file that iTunes will import as an audiobook. This sounds like a great way for Mac users to take advantage of some of those free eBook promotions that publishers have been providing, not to mention all of the public domain titles available as PDFs, allowing readers to toggle from print to audio. I can also see multi-tasking students converting class notes or study guides into audio files for easy review on the iPod - and using the iPod variable speed audiobook control to slow down or speed up the audio. Special Education teachers exploring ways to integrate audio in their instruction may want to try this out!

Image from http://michael.tyson.id.au/

Nonfiction Monday: The Man Who Walked Between the Towers - the Movie

Hooray! There's a new film documentary, Man on Wire, that shows the true events that inspired Mordicai Gerstein's Caldecott Award-winning "The Man Who Walked Between the Towers" (available as an audiobook read by the author from Live Oak Media, who provides this Teaching Guide). What a wonderful addition to any classroom units that include this amazing nonfiction picture book, that focus on the Twin Towers and September 11th, or simply for pure inspiration. You can see the video movie trailer & find more information about the movie on IMDb.com. Here's the synopsis:

A look at tightrope walker Philippe Petit's daring, but illegal, high-wire routine performed between New York City's World Trade Center's twin towers in 1974, what some consider, "the artistic crime of the century."Image from www.amazon.com

Tantor's new Unabridged Classics - Kindle audiobook listener request

Although I have a weakness for shiny new tech toys, I have not yet entered the world of Kindles. However, I am very intrigued by the Kindle's ability to both display text and play audio files. The combination of both allows the Kindle to be a perfect tool for toggling - switching from print to audiobook as the situation requires. Tantor Audio has the perfect product to test this ability - the most excellent Unabridged Classic series. Time-tested titles ranging from The Secret Garden to The Art of War are given star treatment, with top-notch production and the best audiobook narrators. But the truly innovative touch is the inclusion of the complete title on PDF, ready for download to your computer. And at a super-low price, like Frankenstein narrated by Simon Vance for just $15.99 in the very cool single disc version, which includes both the MP3 audiobook & entire book on PDF !

So here's my request for any Kindle-owning readers: Get your hands on a Tantor Unabridged Classic. Add the audio file to the Kindle. Follow these tips from Joe Wilkert on the TeleRead blog for converting a PDF to a readable Kindle file. Listen when you feel like listening. Read when you feel like reading. Lord knows it drives me insane, but some might like to follow the text while listening. But most of all, leave a comment and let me know if this is possible!

I love this quote from Library Journal's Editor-in-Chief Francine Fialkoff in her editorial Beyond the Kindle:

The confluence of these digital formats, whether print, audio, or video, creates the potential for transition, while the high cost of paper and fuel and the slow growth of publishing ensure that it will come sooner rather than later.

Looks like Tantor Media is embracing the idea!

Image from www.tantor.com

Savvy by Ingrid Law - free Ebook & audio chapter!

During the recent ALA conference, I had the honor of being part of the "Got Tweens? Serving Younger Teens and Tweens" YALSA preconference led by Teri Lesesne. Those of us in attendance had the pleasure of hearing an amazing collection of established authors: Lisa Yee, Amy Goldman Koss, Lisi Harrison, Jon Scieszka, and Bruce Hale. Plus, we all met first-time author Ingrid Law, who shared the background of her just-released book Savvy, a story about book about magic (without using the word magic) which was named a Boston Globe - Horn Book Honor Award title. Walden Media has a terrific website for the novel It includes games, a map, an online bookclub, a FREE download of the entire book through July 20th, and the first chapter of the audiobook of Savvy, published by Penguin Audio. Great marketing for a captivating tale!

Image from http://web.mac.com/ingridlaw/

Xrecode: convert all popular audiofiles, and split into tracks

Audiobook listeners are always looking for new tools. Lifehacker had this tip about a great free Windows download that will convert any popular audiofile (like MP3) to any other audiofile type (like M4A or WMA). Plus, you can split large audio files to smaller parts - no more downloading one long 15+ hour audiobook file from the public library. Super easy to use - just drag and drop. So give Xrecode a try. It looks like a great option to Audiobook Cutter!

Mandela's Folktales, with Archbishop Tutu & celebrity readers

Here's an advance (VERY advance) press release about an audiobook that sounds like a must-listen:

In honor of Nelson Mandela’s 90^th birthday this week, Artists for a New South Africa announced plans to produce an audiobook version of Nelson Mandela’s Favorite African Folktales, an award-winning book of legendary tales hand-picked by the Nobel Peace Prize laureate. An array of celebrated, award-winning performers are donating their talents to the charitable endeavor; those already signed on to voice stories include Gillian Anderson, America Ferrera, Whoopi Goldberg, Samuel L. Jackson, Alan Rickman and Jurnee Smollett. Nobel laureate Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu will record a special message to the world’s children that will be featured on the audiobook.

The audiobook, slated for a Summer 2009 release, will be published and distributed by Hachette Audio. Proceeds will benefit the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund (NMCF), a South African organization founded in 1995 to improve dramatically the way society treats its children; and ANSA, which works in the U.S. and South Africa to combat HIV/AIDS, provide comprehensive assistance to children orphaned by HIV/AIDS, advance human rights, educate and empower at-risk youth and build bonds between both nations through arts, culture and the shared pursuit of social justice. Both organizations are working to address the impact of the AIDS pandemic on children in South Africa, which has more people living with HIV/AIDS and more children orphaned by the disease than any other country.

Image from: www.ansafrica.org