TuneIn Launches $8-a-Month Streaming Service With 40,000 Audiobooks, Radio, Sports

Scribd will soon no longer be able to serve your streaming audiobook needs, and that's going to force audiobook junkies to fall back on their public library and PD sources like LibriVox. Luckily, a new option debuted this week.

The streaming radio site TuneIn has launched a new paid service this week that offers an ad-free listening experience for $8 a month. Described as "one of the most popular radio apps on both iOS and Android", TuneIn's free service let you listen to any of 100,000 plus radio stations from around the globe.

The service is free, yes, but you still have to contend with ads in the app and you have to listen to the ads broadcast by the radio stations. TuneIn Premium, on the other hand, improves on the free service by replacing the adverts with more music (but this only works on 600 stations at the moment). The songs are streamed from TuneIn's server, and are chosen based on a user's listening habits.

The Premium service also has MLB and Premier League play-by-plays, but never mind that; we're here for the audiobooks.

TuneIn is bulking up its paid service with 40,000 audiobooks. It's struck a deal with audiobook distributor Findaway to stream titles from top publishers including Scholastic, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, and Hachette.

Findaway also supplies audiobooks to Scribd and to B&N's audiobook service (assuming it is still in operation), but TuneIn is the only unlimited streaming service supplied by the Ohio-based company.

TuneIn offers a selection of audiobooks far larger than Kindle Unlimited (with 4,500 titles), but can they afford to keep the service going?

image by James Cridland

OnDemand Books Launches Redundant And Expensive Self-Pub Service

A small but somewhat important story was lost in the buzz of the DBW conference last week.

OnDemand Books, makers of the Espresso Book Machine, put out a press release last Wednesday (PDF) and announced that they were launching a self-pub service which would enable authors to distribute their work through OnDemand Books network of POD machines as well as through major ebookstores.

The new service is called SelfEspress, and a few minutes of research has revealed that this new service is very likely being provided by PastPencil, with OnDemand Books' only contribution being to slap their brand on it and mark up the prices.

If you check this page on the SelfEspress website with this list of publishing packages on the FastPencil website, you might notice that FastPencil's DIY 2 package matches with SelfEspress's basic package, with the only major difference being a several hundred dollar markup by SelfEspress.

Needless to say, I don't think either offering is a good value - not when an author can handle many of the bundled options themselves and deal direct with major ebookstores (for ebook distribution) and LSI or Createspace (for POD distribution).

That covers distribution, but should you want a single copy printed you can arrange it through Createspace, or you can distribute through LSI and have it printed at your local Espresso Book Machine. You can also take the files for your book to whoever owns that local EBM and have them print the book for you (most are used to walk in print orders).

P.S. This is somewhat off topic, but has anyone else considered what the launch of SelfEspress says about OnDemand Books' POD efforts? I would say that they have fizzled, but I could be wrong.

images  by Waag Society

And this year's best airline is ...

By Katia Hetter, CNN

May 14, 2014 -- Updated 1223 GMT (2023 HKT)

(CNN) -- So, why are you complaining about your airline? It turns out that other customers aren't -- at least, not as much.

Despite rising airline ticket prices and fees for everything from checked bags to changed flights, airline passengers are increasingly satisfied with their flights. Really!

Satisfaction with North American airlines rose for a second straight year, according to J.D Power and Associates' 2014 North America Airline Satisfaction Study, released Wednesday. Satisfaction measured at a record high 712 points on a scale of 1,000. That's a 17-point increase from 2013.