Dreamscape Media Acquisition by RBMedia

RBMedia’s acquisition of Dreamscape Media brings together two companies described as “highly complementary” in the audiobook industry.

Author: Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter.

TThe American company Dreamscape Media, which, as you may remember, announced a collaboration with the British audiobook company in May Sounded Limited platform—in a definitive agreement to be acquired by RBMedia.

RBMedia is also headquartered in the States, in Landover, Maryland. The “RB” in the name is supposed to come from the original Recorded Books company, founded in 1978.

Dreamscape includes both Dreamscape Publishing, which acquires, produces and distributes audiobooks in approximately 60 countries, and Dreamscape Select, a provider aimed at self-published authors.

In a statement regarding the Dreamscape acquisition news, RBMedia CEO Michael Paull was quoted as saying: “The acquisition of Dreamscape will provide RBmedia with additional depth in key genres and enable us to serve a broader range of authors and publishers.

“As one of RBmedia’s core publishing groups, Dreamscape will enable us to deliver more high-quality titles to our distribution partners and listeners around the world. We look forward to working with the Dreamscape team to take our combined publishing business to the next level.

Sean McManus, president of audiobook publisher Dreamscape, says: “RBmedia and Dreamscape’s audiobook publishing businesses are very complementary.

“We are excited to combine RBmedia’s significant capital and capabilities with Dreamscape’s award-winning catalog and ongoing publishing business.”

In the brief blurbs accompanying the announcement, we have an update on Dreamscape, founded in 2010, which now has a catalog of over 7,000 audiobooks and nearly 1,000 new titles released each year “across genres including crime, thrillers, romance, and children’s audiobooks.”

Earlier this year, Dreamscape announced exclusive audio rights deals for 13 books by John le Carré and five titles by 2023 Nobel Prize winner Jon Fosse. In May, Dreamscape also released the fourth title in the Kingdom of Lies series by Stacia Stark, with the company’s authors including Jeneva Rose, whose thriller The Perfect Marriage has reportedly sold over 350,000 audiobooks, and Lisa Jewell, who has published 15 titles with the company, has reportedly sold almost 2 million audiobooks.

The acquisition of RBMedia-Dreamscape is expected to close in Q3 of this year. Terms of the deal are not publicly disclosed.

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