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Eight out of the UK's top ten spoken word titles for 2000 were from the BBC Spoken Word catalogue. [Source: CIN/Booktrack]

Leader in spoken word
BBC Worldwide is the leading publisher of spoken word in the UK. The company launched its spoken word audio business in 1988 and now has more than 600 titles in its catalogue.

BBC Cover to Cover
In December 2000 BBC Worldwide made its first non-magazine acquisition, with Cover to Cover Cassettes Limited, one of the UK's leading spoken word publishers of unabridged readings.

The Cover to Cover list of more than 200 unabridged titles perfectly complements the radio comedy, dramatisations and readings of both non-fiction and fiction (usually abridged), published under the BBC Radio Collection and BBC Radio 4 Books imprints.

The deal included the licence to publish Harry Potter novels on tape and CD. The first three titles, all read by Stephen Fry, occupied the top three positions in the audio chart for 2000.

The fourth release in the Harry Potter series - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - was launched at the end of the financial year. Within the first month of publication 40,000 units had been sold into trade including 23,000 of the £50 complete set.

Telling Tales
Alan Bennett's Telling Tales follows on from the phenomenal success of his Writing Home. Telling Tales was published alongside the broadcasts of the programme of the same name on BBC2 and Radio 4 in November 2000.

With the accompanying book, video and CD, Telling Tales was Alan's most successful launch ever. Telling Tales was the sixth best-selling spoken word audio of 2000, with Alan Bennett's Talking Heads, also a BBC title, at number eight.

Best-selling audio
BBC Worldwide's existing spoken word audio list, published under the imprints BBC Radio Collection and BBC Radio 4 Books, produced a number of 2000's top ten titles, including The Hobbit, Just William, and I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue.

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