International Digital Publishing Forum (formerly Open eBook Forum) is the International Trade and Standards Organization for the Digital Publishing Industry.
Stay tune for a discussion of standards in the e audiobook field.
See also eMusic Publishing Partners
Bookmark: 
Los Angeles hosted BookExpo May 2008 and http://eMusic's David Pakman gave a requiem for DRM in audiobooks. As with bottled water, where free is everywhere, non-free goods must simply be better. Opening with a recounting of the travails of music piracy (i.e. piracy dwarfs sales 10:1 with a billion pirated songs per month), Pakman took the BookExpo crowd through a mini tour of technology. Ever since the "time shift" enabled by video tape in 1984, technology has not succeeded in eliminating piracy. Pakman states that thwarting interoperability through proprietary formats hurts sales and is impotent in curbing piracy. Now, the 4 major record labels have abandoned DRM. And audiobooks may not be far behind.
Recently, Random House ran an experiment in the audiobook arena, and results support the conclusion that release of audiobooks without DRM does not increase piracy rate. In a release of 10-13 audiobook titles in MP3 format without DRM, Random House found no increase in piracy rate. So piracy was not aggravated by the fact that the format of the audiobooks were not "protected" by anti-copying or proprietary technology. And, not surprisingly, age correlates with piracy, with increase in chronological age correlating with a decrease in piracy.
Making an audiobook is not technically more difficult than podcasting, and can even be done in one's living room. While the cost of producing an audiobook runs between $2,500 to $10,000, most of the cost in the "voice talent" which, in many cases, is the author. However, even using costly voice talent, sales of only 300 copies suffice to "breakeven." Pakman contends that the numbers ought to encourage publishers to sell deep into their catalogues.
Adoption of a standard will be important for getting more titles distributed. Approximately 15,000 titles - a small percentage of books in print - are presently offered in audiobook form. Pakman advocated adoption of an open standard for audiobooks to promote interoperability. Currently iTunes is compatible with the standard, yet no organized approach to adoption has appeared.
Photo: David Pakman at BookExpo 2008, Los Angeles
If, as Pakman asserts, consumers have "Life on Demand" will "books" bypass print entirely and, go straight to digital? Imagine an Oprah interview with an author and simultaneous download of pre-sold digital and audio copies. Perhaps book sales will evolve to "blockbuster" opening weekend numbers as movies have. Time will tell.
Bookmark:
Los Angeles, June 2008
Coming soon: Synopsis Dave Pakman CEO of eMusic
RIP DRM: epublishing of audio books
Continue reading "Los Angeles: BookExpo 2008" »
Bookmark:
