We are putting thousands of audiobooks on sale in June to celebrate Audiobook Month! Visit our Specials page now.
Category: AudiobooksNow News
2024 Audie Award Winners
Congratulations to the 2024 Audio Award Winners and finalists! You can find these award winning audiobooks and more at AudiobooksNow.
AI-Narrated Audiobooks
Audiobooks being narrated by an artificial voice or artificial intelligence (AI) has been a hot button topic in the audiobook industry from many years. We attended the Audiobook Publishers Association’s annual conference back in May 2017 in New York City and it was being heavily discussed then. They were referring to it as Text-to-Speech Technology at the time, but the acronym AI (Artaficial Intelegnce) has taken over today’s terminology. The issues with “Text-to-Speech” technology back in 2017 was the lack of rhythm, style, and emotion. The synthesized voices also did not sound very lifelike. Those issues have come a long way since 2017 and combined with today’s AI ability to learn, they are less of an issue today.
Issues with AI-Narrated Audiobooks:
- Lack of rhythm, style, and emotion in voice
- Unlifelike sound of synthesized voices
- Takes jobs away from human narrators
Human narration is considered an art, with many of today’s top narrators taking decades to refine their craft. Digital narration may have its place with manuals and self published authors, but major publishing houses say audiobooks must be narrated by a human. Why would AI narration even be considered you ask, money. The average audiobook takes about one week to narrate, AI narrations take a fraction of that time. So how long will it take before publishing houses realize the economic benefits of AI?
Today, they are cloning the voice of professional narrators who license the rights to their voice. This makes a digitally narrated audiobook sound more lifelike but has many narrators alarmed at what it could mean for their industry. Weather you agree or disagree with AI narrated audioboks, it’s clear the technology is here to stay, and more and more audiobooks will be digitally narrated in the future. The big question is, will the public accept AI-narrated literature? only time will tell.
Audiobook Gifts 2023
Audiobooks make the perfect gift this holiday season. Give audiobooks now at discounted prices!
Gift Ideas for Audiobook Lovers
Finding the perfect gift for an audiobook lover can be challenging, but don’t worry, AudiobooksNow has you covered. AudiobooksNow offers 3 convenient and flexible ways to give audiobooks as a gift.
Ways to Give Audiobooks as a Gift:
- Give any Audiobook or Audiobooks as a Gift
- Audiobook Gift Certificates
- Audiobook Gift Plan
You can give any specific audiobook or audiobooks to someone as a gift by simply using the “Give As Gift” button for any audiobook. Find the “Give As Gift” button on the details page of any audiobook by click on the title or jacket cover of the book. You may add as many audiobooks to your gift cart as you’d like. Choose to print a gift certificate to put in a card or give in person, or, email the recipient. If emailing the recipient, you can to send the email instantly, or choose a specific date in the future. Adding a personal note to the email is also an option.
Auidobook gift certificates can be given in $5 increments starting at $10 and going up to $200. This allows the recipient to choose their own audiobooks for the ultimate flexibility. After redeeming a gift certificate, the dollar amount will be applied to the users account as a credit and automatically debited at checkout when making a purchase. Gift certificate balances cannot be used for club fees. AudiobooksNow gift certificates can also be printed or email.
AudiobooksNow offers their Annual Club Pricing Plan as a gift. This gift plan gives the recipient an entire year of club benefits. Benefits include, 50% off any 12 audiobooks, deep discounts on everything else purchased, including gifts, double reward points, and access to exclusive sales. This Annual Club Pricing Gift Plan does not start until redeemed.
Purchasing Digital Audiobooks in Bulk
AudiobooksNow offers a simple and convenient way for organizations of any sizes to purchase audiobooks in bulk. Weather you need 10 copies or 10,000 copies, AudiobooksNow makes it fast and easy. Any origination can apply for AudiobooksNow’s free Bulk Audiobook Purchasing Program that allows you to purchase multiple copies of any audiobook.
Organizations have the option to simply enter a number of licenses they want or paste the names and email addresses of the recipients and let their system handle everything. If you choose to enter a number, you’ll receive that number of licenses that you can give to anyone at any time. If you choose the custom option, you can paste the names and email address of the recipients and AudiobooskNow will email the instructions to redeem the audiobook along with other helpful information. You even have the option to add a personal note to the email. In your account, you’ll have the ability to manage the recipients, see who has or has not redeem their audiobook, regift unredeemed audiobooks to others, and resend reminder emails to redeem them. Weather you choose the simple or custom option the licenses will never expire so there is no time limit on when you used them.
Common reasons to purchase audiobooks in bulk:
- Employee Training
- Conference Attendees
- Corporate Book Clubs
- Student Learning
- Employee Motivation
- Employee Inspiration
By default, AudiobooksNow’s free Bulk Audiobook Purchasing Program offers a 35% discount, but notify them of any purchases over 100 and they’ll reach out to the publisher and try to negotiate a deeper discount. AudiobooksNow can also turn multiple licenses to redeem an audiobook into a single code for convenience. This allows organizations to send one code to multiple recipients that can be redeemed multiple times. AudiobooksNow can also turn the links to redeem an audiobook into QR codes which makes it more convenient for recipients.
FAQ about AudiobooksNow’s Bulk Purchasing Program:
- Are we able to gift specific titles in bulk and print individual certificates for them? Yes, any audiobook you purchase in bulk received unique Gift IDs that can be printed with instructions and given to recipients.
- What’s the minimum purchase for a bulk order? There is no minimum for bulk purchases, while the program is designed for purchasing audiobooks in bulk, it’s common for organizations to come back later and purchase an additional copy. Maybe a new employee was just hired for example.
- How long will it take to receive the codes to redeem the audiobook once I place my bulk order. Orders are fulfilled instantly so you’ll have immediate access to the redeem codes.
- Will users have to set up an account to redeem their gift? Yes, users will have to set up a free account in order to redeem their audiobook. The only information required to set up a free account is name, email address, and password.
AudiobooksNow is flexible so if there is anything not covered in this article that you’d like to see as an option, or simply have a question about the program, do not hesitate to contact them.
Click here to learn more about AudiobookNow’s Bulk Purchasing Program
Audiobook Month 2023 Is Here!
Find your next great audiobook at an incredibly low price today! Visit AudiobooksNow Specials now.
Audiobook Month 2022 Celebration
June is Audiobook Month! AudiobookNow is running mega sales all month long in celebration:
Sleep & Meditation Audio
AudiobooksNow has partnered with Carbon Unwind to bring you sleep and meditation audio. Most people have trouble getting a good night sleep, especially in these stressful pandemic times. Inspired by nature and the outdoors, Carbon Unwind has created content to help you get a better nights sleep. You can purchase this sleep and meditation content al-a-cart or gain unlimited access to the entire sleep and meditation library included in our Club Pricing Plan at no extra cost. There is also content designed specifically for kids.
What are Digital Audiobooks?
Explanation of what digital audiobooks are, advantages of digital audiobooks, and how they can be used.
Let’s start by saying what digital audiobooks are not. They are not book on tape or audio books on CD. Books on tape are extinct and audio books on CD are right behind them. They do not even make cars with CD players in them anymore so it is just a matter of time before CDs follow cassette tapes.
Now let’s talk about what digital audiobooks are. Digital audiobooks are audiobooks in some type of digital audio file format, the most common format being MP3. MP3 files are compressed audio files that offer small file size and great sound quality. Audiobooks in digital format can be downloaded or streamed from a website on a desktop or laptop computer, or through apps on mobile devices, Apple iPhone or iPad for example. Three advantages of digital audiobooks over other formats:
Advantages
- Instantly Download
- Instantly Stream
- Download and burn to CDs
One of the main advantages of digital over other formats is being able to instantly access the audiobook after purchasing. Digital requires no shipping time or cost and are less expensive than other formats. Another advantage is portability. Downloading them to a smartphone or tablet allows you to easily take your audiobooks on the go. Using your devices built in speaker, headphones, or Bluetooth gives you multiple was to listen. Most automobiles these days have built in Bluetooth capabilities so you can pair your mobile device with your automobile and use the internal speakers to listen to your audiobooks.
Other advantages of digital is the ability to take your entire audiobook library with you on the go that fits in the palm of your hand. You also do not have to worry about swapping CDs or cassette tapes in and out or scratching or losing them. The MP3 files can even be download and listen to on a thumb drive, MP3 player, or any app of your choice. Here are 5 more advantages of digital audiobooks:
More Advantages
- No shipping time or expense
- They are less expensive
- There are more ways to listen to them
- Take your entire audiobook library with you on the go
- No swapping, scratching, or losing CDs or tapes
We have covered a lot of advantages of audiobooks in digital format and that points out a lot of disadvantages of other audio book formats. Because of many advantages of digital, publishers are making less and less audio books on CD. This trend is expected to continue and audio books on CD will eventually be phased out like books on tape. To browse AudiobooksNow’s selection of over 180,000 digital audiobooks, please use the link below: