Latest news with #BrandonSanderson
Hans India
19-07-2025
- Business
- Hans India
Spotify's New 30-Hour Audiobook Plans Still Fall Short for Long Reads
Spotify is once again expanding its reach beyond music and podcasts, but this time, its new audiobook plans are drawing mixed reactions. The company has introduced two fresh Audiobooks Plus add-on subscriptions that allow Premium users to double their current audiobook listening time, from 15 hours to 30 hours each month. These add-ons are available for individual Premium subscribers as well as those managing Family or Duo plans. Other users on shared Premium plans can now request their own 15 hours of audiobook access from their plan manager. However, for avid audiobook listeners, the new limit may still feel frustratingly tight. While 30 hours might be enough to squeeze in a couple of shorter novels, it falls short for fans of epic fantasy or sprawling non-fiction. Take George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones or Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings — both easily exceed that limit. Even classics like Robert Jordan's The Eye of the World, which runs nearly 33 hours, would be impossible to finish without spilling over into the next month's hours or purchasing a top-up — an option Spotify doesn't currently offer for titles already included in Premium. To make matters more restrictive, Premium subscribers can't simply buy these books outright through Spotify. 'I scoured through Spotify's audiobook listings to find anything I could buy as a Premium subscriber and came up with nothing,' one user noted. This makes Spotify's approach feel more limiting when compared to services like Audible, which gives users one free audiobook per month to keep forever. Audible also frequently runs discounts, letting subscribers build a permanent library at a relatively low cost. Despite this, Spotify's model does offer some benefits for authors. Reports suggest that Spotify's payouts to authors are better than what Audible provides. Unfortunately, the lack of a purchase option means subscribers have no direct way to support their favourite writers while staying within the app. Currently, the new Audiobooks Plus add-ons are only available in select markets, including the UK, Australia, New Zealand, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Netherlands. Pricing differs by region — in the UK, for example, both add-ons cost £8.99 (around $12), which could effectively double the price of an individual Premium subscription in the US. Spotify says it plans to launch similar plans in the US soon. American listeners already have the option to purchase 10-hour audiobook top-ups for $12.99, but the new add-ons will let them automatically roll over into 30 hours each month without extra steps. For casual listeners, Spotify's standard 15-hour allowance may still be a decent perk, especially if they also stream music on the platform. The company even offers a $9.99 audiobook-only plan with 15 hours of listening for those who get their music elsewhere. A Spotify spokesperson did not comment on how many listeners actually hit the current 15-hour ceiling. For now, it seems Spotify's move is a step in the right direction for audiobook fans — just not quite far enough for those ready to lose themselves in the longest tales.
The Verge
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Verge
Spotify's new 30-hour audiobook plans are too short to finish long books
Spotify has launched two new Audiobooks Plus add-on subscriptions that allow Premium users to double their audiobook listening limit to 30 hours. They're available to individual Premium subscribers and users who manage Family and Duo plans. Other users on Premium accounts can now also request 15 hours of audiobook access from their plan manager. However, the new plans are still too short for those who prefer to listen to longer books. The 30-hour limit won't get you through titles like George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones or Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings, for example. You could listen to two or three smaller novels instead, but if you want to re-listen to them in the future, you'll have to sacrifice those hours again. And you can forget about buying books to get around these issues — any audiobook included in Premium isn't available for Premium subscribers to purchase. I scoured through Spotify's audiobook listings to find anything I could buy as a Premium subscriber and came up with nothing. By comparison, Audible's $14.95 premium plan gives users an entire free book each month that they can keep forever, and frequently has titles on sale for far less than the price of Spotify's time-based top-ups. The payouts that Spotify gives to authors are reportedly better than what Audible pays, but it sucks that Spotify makes it so difficult to support authors directly with purchases. These add-ons are currently only available for Spotify Premium users in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Netherlands, following initial tests in Ireland and Canada. Pricing will vary by region. In the UK, both Audiobook add-ons are priced at £8.99 (about $12, which could double the $11.99 individual Premium plan pricing in the US). Spotify will eventually introduce similar plans to the US, according to TechCrunch, though users in that region already have the option to purchase 10-hour audiobook top-ups for $12.99. The main perk here is convenience — these rolling add-on subscriptions will automatically allow Premium users to listen to 30 hours of audiobooks each month without needing to buy top-ups. A Spotify spokesperson wasn't immediately available to comment on how many users currently listen to over 15 hours of audiobooks. The 15 hours provided to Premium subscribers is a 'nice to have' if you also stream music on the platform, especially if you only listen to a handful of shorter book titles every month. Spotify also has a $9.99 audiobook-only Premium plan that provides 15 hours of listening with no music perks if you prefer to listen to your tunes elsewhere.
Digital Trends
24-06-2025
- Business
- Digital Trends
The new most funded project in Kickstarter history is not something I expected
Popular crowd-funding site Kickstarter has crowned a new 'most funded project' in its history. And yes, it's a printer. I know, wild right? The Eufy Make E1 has managed to raise a staggering $44 million from almost 17,000 backers at time of writing, and there are still three days of crowd funding to go. That's considerably more than the $500,000 goal it had set out to raise. Recommended Videos The printer has wrestled back top spot from the non-tech, four novel series by author Brandon Sanderson project which amassed a hugely impressive $42 million of funding back in August 2024. That book series absolutely blew the previous record holder out the water, as the Pebble Time (remember that) had held the most funded project title since December 2016, having raised just over $20 million. What I didn't have on my 2025 bingo card was for a printer to be quite so gosh darn popular. This must be a pretty good printer, right? Well, you'll be pleased to know this isn't your run-of-the-mill inkjet printer. The Eufy Make E1 is a 'personal 3D-texture UV printer', and yes, I didn't have a clue what that meant at first either. So what does that mean? Eufy says the Make E1 'is the first consumer-grade UV printer capable of printing 3D textures up to 5mm thick', noting that it's '90% smaller than conventional UV printers.' The Make E1 can print on a wide range of surfaces, including metal, wood, fabric, canvas, leather, and acrylic, printing textures on these surfaces to give you a tactile feel to the finished product. You can print directly on objects such as mugs and flasks, and the neat thing about UV printers is their ability to accurately reproduce millions of colors. Now if you're thinking that sounds a bit much for printing out homework or the latest finance report, you'd be right. This isn't a printer which is designed for every home. The Make E1 is aimed at creators and entrepreneurs, folks who run small businesses or want a side hustle selling unique prints, but its compact size means it can probably fit in your home if you're intrigued. Eufy is an established technology brand as well, making a range of smart home products including robot vacuums, smart cameras, security systems and video doorbells. Some things in the printer world don't change though. You'll still need to purchase ink cartridges (which are $42.99 for 100ml), with six colors required for the full gamut of options. That's $257.94 for a complete set of ink. If you're planning on printing a lot, the ink cost is going to quickly start adding up. The Eufy Make E1 will currently set you back $1,899 and you've got until 6:57 AM PDT / 9:57 AM EDT on June 28 to place an order via Kickstarter.
Forbes
05-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Netflix Should Pick Up ‘The Wheel Of Time' After Amazon Cancels Its Best Live-Action Fantasy Show
Wheel Of Time It's been a tough run for fantasy shows lately. Ever since the massive popularity of Game Of Thrones, streaming services have been trying – and failing – to replicate that success. Amazon tried with two big-budget fantasy series: The Rings Of Power and The Wheel Of Time. The latter was killed so the former could live on, though many fans wonder why the better of the two was cancelled while the execrable Rings Of Power was given yet another season. One notable fan who publicly questioned the cancellation is Brandon Sanderson, who penned the final three books in Robert Jordan's fantasy series. 'I do think it's a shame," the author said in a comment on his YouTube channel, "as while I had my problems with the show, it had a fanbase who deserved better than a cancelation after the best season. I won't miss being largely ignored; they wanted my name on it for legitimacy, but not to involve me in any meaningful way.' I couldn't agree more. While the show made some pretty major departures from the source material, and while there is no doubt it got off to an incredibly rough start, Season 3 was easily the best of the bunch and it was clear that the creators and cast were finally finding their feet. As I noted in a previous post, the show deserves another season – warts and all – because it is currently not just the best live-action fantasy series on Prime Video, but really the only major live-action fantasy series worth watching these days. Indeed, unless the new HBO Harry Potter series can save fantasy, things are looking pretty grim for the genre. House Of The Dragon certainly isn't sitting well with fans after its disappointing second season. Television was the best hope for epic fantasy on screen, as outside of a few diamonds in the rough (Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings trilogy, for instance, or Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves) there are few fantasy films worth taking seriously. As with other major cancellations of TV shows that deserved better, the hope from fans is less that Amazon will reconsider and more that some other streamer might pick up the show and give it new life. I said much the same thing when HBO canned the excellent – if incredibly bizarre – sci-fi series Raised By Wolves. Netflix has had terrible luck in its attempt to create its own Game Of Thrones, with series like Shadow & Bone not making much of a splash before their own untimely demise, and The Witcher fizzling out after a strong first season. And while it has projects in the works, like its Narnia films, there really isn't much to show for the company's investment in fantasy. A smart move would be to pick up The Wheel Of Time and give it a second chance at the biggest streamer out there. There's a baked-in audience. The cast and crew is already in place. Such a move is not unheard of, after all. Amazon saved The Expanse from an early grave, much to the delight of fans. That ended up being one of the most popular sci-fi series of all time. Netflix certainly has the cash to acquire the rights and it would earn a huge PR victory in the process. Over 124,000 fans have already signed a petition to save the show, and I suspect quite a few would happily fork over the cash for a Netflix subscription if the streamer made the move. It might be pie-in-the-sky thinking, but I genuinely believe that Wheel Of Time on Netflix makes sense, and would give the streamer the premium fantasy series its been hoping for all these years, while taking a feather from Amazon's cap in the process. That's basically two wins for the price of one. Of course, I will beat the animated fantasy series drum once more and just urge more streamers to consider animated adaptations of fantasy epics going forward. I'd love an animated Lord Of The Rings series or a show based on Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles. Hell, I'd love to see an animated reboot of The Walking Dead. For now, it's just hope. But rebellions are built on hope.
Mint
04-06-2025
- Business
- Mint
How to share your Kindle e-books with a reading buddy
Let me be clear at the outset: This isn't a 'How to jailbreak your Kindle' manual. Nor is it a paean to Amazon. As someone whose working life has revolved around editing and reviewing books, I am all too aware of the problematic business model followed by the global behemoth when it comes to selling books, among other things. This piece is, rather, a PSA of sorts, for those who aren't aware of a less-visible feature in Kindle devices that allows users to share their library with others. Given Amazon's tendency to bury such options deep inside its ecosystem, it is likely that this hack may be news to many readers. If you want to legally share your library with another user, you can use the Amazon Household platform, and it works pretty much like Amazon Prime's family plan. Before I come to the nuts and bolts of the process, some statutory warnings and plain facts. For those who aren't already in the know, Amazon holds a near monopoly in the book-selling business, one of the segments with which the venture started. Currently, the company owns about 50% of the physical and 80% of the digital book market share. Amazon's e-commerce model, which is based on aggressive discounting and superfast delivery, even while incurring losses, has endangered brick-and-mortar bookshops around the world. While Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), the company's self-publishing platform, has made book publishing more egalitarian, it has also led to a drastic erosion of quality. The terms and conditions for putting out work on KDP are stringent—especially if a writer opts out of KDP's preferred pricing model, which leads to a steep reduction in royalty share. When it comes to audio-books, the royalty shares are higher in Amazon's favour. By default, Audible, the company's audio-books platform, takes a 60% cut from all books available exclusively on it. If a writer decides to opt out of the exclusivity deal, the share could go as high as 75%. A few years ago, best-selling fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson got into a pickle with Amazon over audiobook royalty shares for a series he had self-published. Amazon, apparently, conceded somewhat to his terms, though it's not clear how it tangibly changed the overall royalty structure for newbies and lesser known writers. Most shocking to a reader would be the fact that you don't own any of the books you buy on Kindle. As the fine print says, you aren't buying the book itself—as you would with a physical book you may purchase from a bookshop—but simply paying for a license to read it. Amazon can, at any stage, remove a book from your library if you violate its terms and conditions or the company is forced by other exigencies. In 2009, it deleted an e-book version of George Orwell's iconic novel, 1984, from Kindle devices, simply because the publisher who sold that edition didn't have the right to do so. In a series of informative videos, YouTuber Jared Henderson has been highlighting such misdemeanours by Amazon, including the fact that the company can change a cover of a book you purchased. Henderson saw this happen when a TV series based on Robert Jordan's fantasy series, The Wheel of Time, came out. Without seeking his consent, Amazon swapped the cover of his old Kindle edition with the new one. In a further tightening of the leash, Amazon recently decided to prevent users from downloading copies of the books they purchase and store them locally. This feature gave the option to users to strip the Digital Management Rights (DRM) from these files and share with others—much like you would lend out a physical copy of a book you've paid good money for to others, should you wish to. The silver lining in all this is that you can now at least lend your library to one adult and four kids in your family. You could either send an email invitation to the person you want to share your library with by following the steps described on the Amazon Household page. Or else, you can log into your Amazon account, go to Accounts & Lists, Shopping Programs & Rentals under it, and find Amazon Household there. Depending on the way you configure the Amazon Household account, you can share other digital content from your Prime library—games, shows, and movies—too. This is the closest you can come to sharing your digital library of books with your reading buddy—even if they are in another city—for now. Until Amazon decides to change its mind again.
