WattPad is the largest self-publishing community in the world and they have just partnered with Hachette Audio to have 50 audiobooks produced in 2017. These titles will be available on Bandcamp, iTunes, Audible, Barnes & Noble, Downpour, eStories, Audibooks.com, Libro.fm, and others. Physical audiobooks on CD will be made available to libraries and on-demand.
Hachette will be producing the audiobooks and will have their own sound engineers and narrators taking care of each title. Speaking of which, how will both sides determine what stories will converted to audio? Nazia Khan the Communications Lead of WattPad told me “Initial titles were selected by a special editorial team, with both companies working together to pick titles that we think range a good variety of genre and will translate well to audio while also representing what Wattpad community storytellers do best. We’ll use our proprietary data and community insights to identify stories that have large built-in audiences, as well as provide opportunities to our Wattpad Stars, some of the most popular storytellers on the platform. ”
“We love seeing the worlds and characters Wattpad storytellers create come to life in different ways. The Hachette Audiobooks: Powered by Wattpad partnership gives the Stars of the Wattpad community a unique chance to have their stories narrated by skilled actors and distributed to people beyond the Wattpad platform,” said Head of Partnerships for Wattpad Studios Ashleigh Gardner. “Wattpad stories have been successfully produced as books, television shows, and movies. Now, people will not only be able to read and watch Wattpad stories, but also listen to them. Storytelling has never sounded so good!”
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
