The audiobook phenomenon has been gaining more and more ground in the publishing industry landscape over the past few years. This growing popularity is causing many advancements in the production process, which are, in turn, offering many new and exciting opportunities.
One such opportunity manifested in the acquisition of Dreamscape Media by the largest audiobook publisher in the world, RBmedia. On 9 July, RBmedia publicly disclosed the agreement to acquire Dreamscape Media during the third quarter of this year.
Founded in 2010, Dreamscape Media’s primary goal has been the production and publication of a diverse and high-quality catalogue of entertainment content. With over 7,000 audiobooks already released, Dreamscape is rightfully considered a key publisher.
Dreamscape Media has many divisions, each with specific interests and targeted audiences. Its two main divisions are Dreamscape Publishing – responsible for the acquisition, production and distribution of audiobooks in over 60 countries – and Dreamscape Select – responsible for the marketing and sales support of independent authors and publishers.
RBmedia is also a prolific audiobook publisher, with over 70,000 audiobooks in its back catalogue and a publication system of over 8,000 audiobooks released yearly. Furthermore, award-winning voice actors and top directors are employed for each production.
Taking into account the power that those two companies are able to hold individually within the industry, their amalgamation is bound to be revolutionary for the audiobook publishing world.
In a statement, RBmedia’s CEO, Michael Paull, said, “The acquisition of Dreamscape will give RBmedia additional depth in key genres and enable us to serve a broader set of authors and publishers. As one of RBmedia’s core audio publishing groups going forward, Dreamscape will allow us to provide more high-quality titles to our distribution partners and listeners worldwide. We look forward to working with the Dreamscape team to take our combined publishing business to the next level.”
In a similar vein, Sean McManus, president of Dreamscape, has commented, “The RBmedia and Dreamscape audiobook publishing businesses are highly complementary.”
Dreamscape’s success in 2023 was evident, as illustrated in the company’s own review of the year: “In 2023, we celebrated partnerships with numerous best-selling authors and award-winning publishers to create and publish a diverse collection of audiobook titles across the globe.”
Alongside the staggering growth in sales, the audiobook publisher launched a brand-new division, Dreamscape Lore, which focuses on sci-fi and fantasy audiobook production. This genre-specific division has already accumulated a multitude of award-winning titles, including Sue Burke’s Dual Memory (narrated by Andre Santana), and S.L. Huang’s The Water Outlaws (narrated by Emily Woo Zeller).
A further indication of Dreamscape’s success was the number of new publishing partnerships established in 2023. A few of those partnerships include Marvel Entertainment, Storm Publishing, Mayo Clinic Press and Canongate.
2023 was a record-breaking year for RBmedia as well. The company managed to release more titles than ever before, established new partnerships and signed multiple best-selling authors to new deals.
With this purchase of Dreamscape by RBmedia, it can be expected that the next years will match or surpass last year’s success and bring many new titles to listeners’ radars, as well as potential award nominations.
The agreement has been signed and made public, but its terms have not yet been disclosed.
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