eMusic Adds Audiobooks from Recorded Books and HighBridge

By Lynn Andriani -- Publishers Weekly, 5/21/2009 11:46:00 AM

eMusic’s audiobook catalog has officially surpassed 7,000 titles. The expansion is due to new agreements to sell DRM-free audiobooks from Recorded Books and HighBridge Audio. eMusic has also recently added Sounds True, Gildan Media, Oasis Audio and PublicAffairs to its roster.

Rob Wetstone, eMusic v-p of content, said, “As more publishers choose to sell their audiobooks DRM-free, they validate what we’ve proven since eMusic launched in 1998—customers want to be able to own their recorded content in the format of their choice and play it on the device of their choice.” Since eMusic began offering audiobooks through its site in fall 2007, more than 250,000 audiobooks have been downloaded.  

Some of eMusic’s new additions include books in Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, William P. Young’s The Shack, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and No Country for Old Men, Salman Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown, and Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire series, which is the basis for HBO’s True Blood.

Last year, Random House Audio removed DRM software from most of its audiobooks, and since then, major audiobooks publishers are either removing DRM restrictions from their audiobook titles or making plans to do so in the near future.