Christie Goes Digital

by Shannon Maughan, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 9/15/2006

As a fitting celebration of late author Agatha Christie’s birthday (September 15, 1890), September 12 marked the first day that unabridged digital downloads of her books were made available to consumers, via Audible.com and iTunes.com in the U.S. and the U.K. Christie’s grandson Mathew Prichard commented on why the titles had not been previously released in this format.“As caretakers of Agatha Christie's marvelous legacy, we have been understandably cautious about authorizing downloads of audiobook versions over the Internet,” he noted. “But we are extremely pleased that unabridged audiobook downloads from iTunes and Audible.com will enable more people around the world to enjoy Agatha Christie mysteries more frequently.”

Following this initial push of 15 titles, Audio Partners, the U.S. audio publisher of Christie’s body of work, and HarperCollins Audio in the U.K. plan to gradually make all the remaining Christie novels and short stories (approximately 70 works in total) available for download in the next few years. Audio Partners also plans to distribute them in the U.S. via additional download vendors in the near future. Further information on the downloads and other Christie developments is available at www.agathachristie.com.