Audio Samples Incorporated into Random House’s Insight Platform
Random House added audio book clips this week into its new online sample platform, aimed at attracting consumers to help virally market its titles online, which the publisher launched earlier this month.
More than 2,200 new and backlist audio book titles were made available yesterday through the publisher’s Insight, which works in conjunction with the widget technology it introduced two weeks ago. Users can post these widgets, a search-through-the-book technology that allows users to see a fixed set of pages inside a title, to Web sites and blogs.
According to Random House, the objectives for the Insight audio offerings are similar to those for its print titles: to provide an easy-to-access discover-and-sample experience for all users.
Madeline McIntosh, senior vice president and publisher, Random House Audio and Large Print Publishing Group, said she’s excited by the increased exposure Insight will provide her division’s products.
“Consumers like to sample an audio book, much as they do recorded music, before they buy it—which is why we long have made it a priority to have a sample available from nearly every one of our productions,” she said. “Now, the Insight program makes it so easy to distribute those samples on the Web to everyone: especially booksellers, librarians, authors and the consumers themselves.”
According to sales figures gathered from participants of the Association of American Publishers Statistics Program, audio book sales saw a drop of 11.7 percent in 2006.
- Companies:
- Association of American Publishers
- People:
- Madeline McIntosh