The State of the Audiobook Industry

In 2007 a paltry 3,073 audiobook titles were produced and this figure rose exponentially to over 12,000 published in 2011. In 2013 many industry experts proclaimed that over 20,000 audiobooks were now available and in 2014 over 35,000 were released by major publishers and companies like Audible.

The global audiobook industry is currently worth 2.6 billion dollars and part of the reason why we have seen a dramatic increase in profitability is due to digital. In a recent New York Times piece, they said “In the first eight months of 2014, sales were up 28% over the same period last year, far outstripping the growth of e-books, which rose 6%”

[CarlKnoxsundowner]

most of my audio books are purchase from audible. seen i live in southern California i commute 5 days a week 70 miles daily so listening to a audio book works for me. 

[sjsjms]

I agree that this will continue to grow and grow. The ability to sync listening and reading on the fly will really increase the satisfaction levels of the audio version. It will be interesting to see if anyone can really compete with Audible in the longrun.

[west]

I might listen to a few audiobooks if I can't get the book in another format but it is not my format of choice. I find it too slow for me and too difficult to pay attention if I'm not doing the reading myself.

However, I am very aware that I am not the "average" person, and just anecdotally it does seems like more people I know are using Audible. I honestly don't think it will be the "next big thing" though, but more of a niche market. People in general just don't read whether it is through audiobook, ebook, or physical book.

[goohber]

i like audio books, until i hear excessive dramatics, such as a male reader/narrator high pitching his voice to sound like a little girl, or a woman modifying her voice to sound like a little boy, or man - gets 2b too much, , & so i would rather read the damn book myself & skp the audio book entirely. whatever happened to boring narrators, at least they read the story/book, without L those lame dramatics. F narrators want 2 become actors, they should act, not waste their lame talent reading audio books, they ruin it 4 the rest of us.