Unsealed Books is an audio first solution that makes audio storytelling the key to solving a business problem. When a controversial Hungarian law censored physical books, we turned to audio storytelling to free the books from the government imposed wrapping paper and to provide access to literature to everyone.

In July of 2023, Hungary’s government fined a retailer for its display of a book “portraying homosexuality” in a sign it is escalating enforcement of a law meant to curtail minors’ access to LGBTQ content just days before this weekend’s Pride march. The law censors all portrayals of homosexuality. To get fined, it was enough to have a gay character.

Classic literature, such as ancient Greek poetry, the Iliad, Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Marcel Proust, and even Harry Potter fall under the definition of the law.

As the law requires, bookstores began wrapping these books into plastic foil to "keep it away from people under 18", and these books were also forbidden to be sold in the vicinity of schools. The ruling caused panic in the book retailer industry, as it had direct negative impact on sales. At the same time, it was an overt attack on the LGBTQ community. The first one to get a fine of 36,000 USD for not wrapping the books in foil was the 2nd largest bookstore chain in the country, Líra. The fine they received caused international outrage. They wanted a solution to keep the censored books available to everyone.

All the audio pieces are recordings of famous actors reading aloud the text of the censored books. Because the distribution of physical books was restricted by the government, these audio files disguised the book chapters as podcast episodes. This is how they outsmarted the law.

The example episode is from Oscar Wilde's De Profundis, one a the books that needed to be wrapped.

Unsealed Books, episode OSCAR WILDE, De Profundis. Excerpt.

The poor are wise, more charitable, more kind, more sensitive than we are. In their eyes prison is a tragedy in a man’s life, a misfortune, a casuality, something that calls for sympathy in others. They speak of one who is in prison as of one who is ‘in trouble’ simply. It is the phrase they always use, and the expression has the perfect wisdom of love in it. With people of our own rank it is different. With us, prison makes a man a pariah. I, and such as I am, have hardly any right to air and sun. Our presence taints the pleasures of others. We are unwelcome when we reappear. To revisit the glimpses of the moon is not for us. Our very children are taken away. Those lovely links with humanity are broken. We are doomed to be solitary, while our sons still live. We are denied the one thing that might heal us and keep us, that might bring balm to the bruised heart, and peace to the soul in pain. . . .

I must say to myself that I ruined myself, and that nobody great or small can be ruined except by his own hand. I am quite ready to say so. I am trying to say so, though they may not think it at the present moment. This pitiless indictment I bring without pity against myself. Terrible as was what the world did to me, what I did to myself was far more terrible still.

I was a man who stood in symbolic relations to the art and culture of my age. I had realised this for myself at the very dawn of my manhood, and had forced my age to realise it afterwards. Few men hold such a position in their own lifetime, and have it so acknowledged. It is usually discerned, if discerned at all, by the historian, or the critic, long after both the man and his age have passed away. With me it was different. I felt it myself, and made others feel it. Byron was a symbolic figure, but his relations were to the passion of his age and its weariness of passion. Mine were to something more noble, more permanent, of more vital issue, of larger scope.

The gods had given me almost everything. But I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless and sensual ease. I amused myself with being a flâneur, a dandy, a man of fashion. I surrounded myself with the smaller natures and the meaner minds. I became the spendthrift of my own genius, and to waste an eternal youth gave me a curious joy. Tired of being on the heights, I deliberately went to the depths in the search for new sensation. What the paradox was to me in the sphere of thought, perversity became to me in the sphere of passion. Desire, at the end, was a malady, or a madness, or both. I grew careless of the lives of others. I took pleasure where it pleased me, and passed on. I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character, and that therefore what one has done in the secret chamber one has some day to cry aloud on the housetop. I ceased to be lord over myself. I was no longer the captain of my soul, and did not know it. I allowed pleasure to dominate me. I ended in horrible disgrace. There is only one thing for me now, absolute humility.

I have lain in prison for nearly two years. Out of my nature has come wild despair; an abandonment to grief that was piteous even to look at; terrible and impotent rage; bitterness and scorn; anguish that wept aloud; misery that could find no voice; sorrow that was dumb. I have passed through every possible mood of suffering. Better than Wordsworth himself I know what Wordsworth meant when he said—

‘Suffering is permanent, obscure, and dark

And has the nature of infinity.’

In July of 2023, Hungary’s government fined a retailer for its display of a book “portraying homosexuality”. To get fined, it was enough to have a gay character. Ancient Greek poetry, the Iliad, Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Marcel Proust, even Harry Potter all fall under the definition of the law.

As the law requires, bookstores began wrapping these books into plastic foil to "keep it away from people under 18", and these books were also forbidden to be sold in the vicinity of schools. The ruling caused panic in the book retailer industry, as it had direct negative impact on sales. The first one to get a fine of 36,000 USD for not wrapping the books in foil was the 2nd largest bookstore chain in the country, Líra. The fine they received caused international outrage. They wanted a solution to keep the censored books available to everyone.

Unsealed Books has an unprecedented result: the law that censored these books was overturned and after the campaign, Líra didn't have to pay the fine.

As for social media and PR impact: to further support the LGBTQ+ community, the censored books were red aloud by the most famous LGBTQ+ actors, influencers and musicians in the country. They lent their voice to the books, then shared them on their social media, reaching their massive followings, respectively. Only on social media, they reached a combined 3,9 million people, that's 40% of the total population of the country. All major independent press reported of Unsealed Books, reaching another 3 million readers in total.

Líra's website traffic was also up 400% compared to the same quarter last year.

Because the distribution of physical books was restricted by the government, these audio files disguised the book chapters as podcast episodes. This is how they outsmarted the law.