World Music publisher and past Media Pioneer awards winner is at it again.  Songlines’ Kindle Fire edition went live just before Christmas: the first UK music magazine on the new tablet, according to pioneering publisher Paul Geoghegan.

So far it’s just available in the US market, but through the Kindle app it can be accessed on ipads as well.  The Kindle Fire edition is just a PDF replica of the UK magazine.  Songlines has a long association with Amazon, who have the widest catalogue of world music of any online retailer.  Songlines’ online digital sampler magazine had links through from reviews and audio extracts to purchase the albums on Amazon.  See 2011 Media Pioneers story. 

Single issues are selling at $3.99, and subscriptions work out at $2.99 an issue.  It’s still early days on sales, so watch this space for updates in the coming months.  The edition is just static content for now, but Paul plans to add audio excerpts of music reviewed in the magazine, plus links to the Amazon store to purchase albums.  This is where the Kindle Fire tablet and Amazon ecosystem can start to work together beautifully.

Facebook driving voting in Songlines Music Awards

Meanwhile, Songlines have been working hard on their facebook page, and now have 3,700 likes after less than a year, driven by regular original content from the Songlines blog. There is a sampler edition of the magazine powered by Issuu, and they run regular competitions and concert ticket offers.  They have had some big boosts from celebrity world-music enthusiasts – such as the composer of the Slumdog millionaire soundtrack A R Rahman, with over 7 million likes – and are also working closely with artists and record labels.  They are using the facebook community to drive voting in the annual Songlines Music Awards.  To date voting is 250% ahead of last year.  The sampler edition of Songlines magazine is also available as a free app on Apple’s app store.  The @songlinesmag twitter feed  now has over 3,000 followers, and one person is responsible for both facebook and twitter updates.

Overall, an impressive story of how a niche publisher is tying together web, social media, tablet editions and a burgeoning travel business to unite world music fans from around the world.  

Update - April 2012 - Music Awards & Kindle Fire

The Songlines Music Awards received over 5,000 votes this year, a 250% increase on last year, and social media was the main driver of this.   This year's Awards CD  (featuring all 16 nominees) is currently the best selling world music compilation album in the UK, having received rave reviews in all the broadsheets and specialist press.
Songlines have had even more support from their retail partners, in particular Amazon, HMV and iTunes.

Says Publisher Paul Geoghegan: "There are new strategic partnerships for the Awards: Radio 3 are announcing the winners on their World on 3 programme plus airplay on BBC6 over the weekend.  Reuters are announcing the winners on all their news platforms  and there's an exclusive promotion with the Guardian, offering all 76,000 Guardian Extra members a free track download from each of the 4 Songlines Music Award winners' albums – the promotion is running on the Songlines website. I've also produced an award winners' video this year http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYVLugoUYCU – which we'll be posting on all our social platforms and all video sharing sites. More importantly though, iTunes have confirmed that they will be posting the video on their own Facebook wall next week – they only have 21 MILLION (sic!) followers."

And the Kindle Fire edition is picking up momentum, with around 50-100 new subscriptions each issue. 

Songlines on facebook

Songlines on twitter

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24 May 2012
Think Tank Birmingham

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