Bookshop.org is Thinking About Maybe Getting into Audiobooks
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Bookshop.org is Thinking About Maybe Getting into Audiobooks
Bookshop.org is one of the great book-related digital success stories (of those not now-owned by Amazon, what is second on that list? A segment for another day). And with audiobook listenership still growing, not being able to serve their customers with audiobooks must sting. I got this survey this morning asking customers about audiobook habits, and what can this mean but at least the consideration of getting to the game? I thought it was too late for an indie-focused print competitor when Bookshop.org first launch, so I am not going to make the same mistake and think it is too late now. I will say that Spotify’s emergence as a viable and damn-near ubiquitous audiobook-listening choice both makes Bookshop’s decision harder and probably more acute.
The Most Read Story in the Los Angeles Times’ Book Section is This 9 Year-Old Post about J. Lo.
Apparently, the most read story at the moment is this truly excellent post about a truly stupid line from a movie where Lopez playas a classics teacher who is gifted a signed first edition of….The Iliad (f you are not up on your Ancient Greek literary masterworks, the idea that there is a “first-edition” and that it could be “signed” is a bit like saying their first pet was a velociraptor). This is neither new or newsworthy here almost a decade later, but I can’t help but mention it for those who didn’t know.
Reeese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine Is Not Doing OK
Rebecca and I talked about the truly bonkers selling price of Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine ($900 millionnnnnnnnnnnnn) when it happened and scratched our heads about it. It would seem we were not wrong to do so. Rumors are that the book club-cum-production company is losing enough money that an outside investment bank is coming in to see what can be done. And generally, outside investment banks don’t really fix so much as chop or sell. Sometimes both. The story of Hello Sunshine, whatever happens to it from here on out, will be a fascinating example of what Peak TV wrought.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower Turns 25
I was juuuuuuust outside the target age for Perks when it came out in 1999, but I know for a lot of book nerds of a certain age, it is a classic. The film adaptation was pretty good (terrific cast really). Chobsky could have been John Green before John Green was, but a twenty-year break between books has a way of killing the vibe.
