Audiolib introduces a free new application for iPhone and iPod Touch

Audiolib, France’s foremost publisher of audio books, is offering iPhone(TM)  and iPod Touch(TM) users a free application designed to let them listen to excerpts from its catalogue of audio books. Available for download from the App Store (with an iTunes account), the application already has millions of enthusiastic users. Excerpts will be updated on a regular basis, and come with bonuses like videos and images. This service opens up new avenues for the promotion of all forms of books and reading.

Technophiles and other fans of mobile digital media can buy the “complete” version of all Audiolib titles online from the website of Numilog (a Hachette Livre subsidiary) and then download them to their media players and smartphones.

A subsidiary of Hachette Livre, Albin Michel and Direct Group France, Audiolib was launched in February 2008 to develop France’s audio-book market. With a real boost from new modes of mobile entertainment, this market had already demonstrated its dynamic growth potential in a number of other countries. Audiolib, which already offers more than 60 titles from a wide range of publishers, aims to promote “a new way of reading,” with advantages that include easy portability, fresh reading opportunities (while on-the-go during commutes, for example), and the added pleasure of listening to the human voice.