Machines that can read aloud would be considered magic in any other era, yet in 2022, such technology is unremarkable and will soon be commonplace. Whether we read silently in a quiet library or listen to an audiobook while commuting on a crowded train, the written word continues to hold us in its spell.
2022 Year-in-Review
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In the final weeks of 2022, Velocity of Content is looking back at the past twelve months of programs.
The top news stories on books and readings for 2022 covered the industry at the intersection of the law, technology, and politics.
When the Department of Justice sued in November 2021 to block Penguin Random House’s proposed acquisition of its close competitor, Simon & Schuster, the Biden administration said the deal would give PRH unprecedented control of nearly half the book market. PRH countered that their $2 billion offer for S&S was pro-consumer, pro-author, and pro-bookseller.
Following a weeks-long trial this summer, Judge Florence Pan ruled in favor of the government and blocked the deal from moving forward. The headline news broke on October 31, Halloween, making the decision a real treat for Stephen King, who testified as a DOJ witness
For a close reading of Judge Pan’s opinion and how she came to her conclusion, CCC’s Chris Kenneally turned to Michael Cader, founder of Publishers Lunch and PublishersMarketplace.com.
Audiobooks are an increasingly important piece of the revenue pie for publishers. With few exceptions, human narrators – authors themselves as well as actors and other artists – are heard in such recordings. Now, the latest in TTS – text-to-speech technology — may mean TTFN – ta-ta for now – for traditionally produced audiobooks.
Sophisticated, AI-enabled automated audiobook creation lies just beyond the horizon, says electronic publishing analyst Thad McIlroy. What stands in the way of that vision, though, is a contractual requirement of the leading audiobook platform, counters Bill Wolfsthal, publishing business consultant.
Libraries are meant to be places of peace and for peace – so much so, in fact, that it seems inconceivable that libraries could have any place in war. Yet today across Ukraine, libraries are places for refuge from and resistance against the Russian invasion.
In an essay for The Scotsman newspaper published shortly after the war began, Nick Poole, CEO of CILIP, the UK library and information association, shared a series of moving exchanges with Ukrainian librarians. His besieged colleagues, said Poole, fear attacks on libraries for the damage done to books and buildings and because the intention is to erase Ukrainian language and literature.
Machines that can read aloud would be considered magic in any other era, yet in 2022, such technology is unremarkable and will soon be commonplace.
Whether we read silently in a quiet library or listen to an audiobook while commuting on a crowded train, the written word continues to hold us in its spell. We read to learn more about the world – and when we want or need to, we read to escape into fantasy or entertainment. In dark places and in tough times, we read to survive and to endure.
