Literary magazine published exclusively in audio form

Last fall we featured Underwood: Stories in Sound, a magazine that’s produced twice a year on vinyl LPs, so we were particularly interested when we recently came across The Drum, a literary magazine that’s also published exclusively in audio form. Featuring short fiction, essays, novel excerpts and interviews, The Drum is a Boston-based nonprofit that publishes 10 issues each year. Rather than delivering them for reading in print or online, however, the publication is designed for listening either online or as an MP3 download that can be shared with up to five friends. Most stories on the website are accessible for three months for free and then available for purchase thereafter from the archives. Subscription holders get access to everything for USD 25 per year. In this age of podcasts and MP3s, tapping such media for an offering of “literature out loud,” as The Drum calls it, could make good sense. Other publications in other niches — one to emulate, either as a sole delivery medium or as a complementary option? (Related: Books in bite-sized portions — Every issue of new mag is a work of art — On product publishing: magazine on a bottle.) Spotted by: Susan Johnston