T he Unique & T hriving Business of AUDIOB OOK S
The audiobook market is exploding in Canada & abroad , so why is that & are they really that simple to make ?
By Michael Raine
PHOTO : COURTESY OF PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE CANADA
NINA RICHMOND VOICING A BOOK FOR PRHC
There is something innate in the human spirit that craves , or even needs , stories . Stories – the ones we tell ourselves and each other – are how we learn , entertain , and process the world around us . It ’ s a tendency as old humans . We see evidence in the 30,000-year-old cave drawings of Lascaux and Chavaux , France , which show the earliest documented stories , but anthropologists guess that storytelling is nearly as old as language itself .
The methods by which we share our stories , though , have continually evolved with technology , from the earliest aural languages and those ancient cave drawings , all the way up to TikTok and emojis . Various methods have come in and out of favour , with some lasting centuries – like the good ol ’ fashioned printed book that is still going strong over a millennium after a copy of the Diamond Sūtra was printed in 868 AD – and others lasting mere months ( R . I . P . Vine ). So , it ’ s interesting when new life gets breathed into an older format because of current technology . Audiobooks are having such a moment .
Though first popularized ( at least somewhat ) during and after WWII as a way of educating and entertaining blinded soldiers , audiobooks didn ’ t find widespread mainstream audiences until the 1970s thanks to the audio cassette . Then they really took off in the 1980s through the ‘ 90s because of CDs . In the 2000s , via MP3s and the iPod , audiobooks evolved once more and continued to be a worthwhile ( albeit relatively small ) business for publishers . But now , thanks to smartphones and streaming , which have made all forms of audio instantly accessible , combined with a culture obsessed with multitasking and entertainment-on-the-go , audiobooks are “ having a moment ,” as they say .
In 2019 , audiobook sales were up 16 % in the United States , bringing in $ 1.2 billion USD and surpassing ebooks for the first time , which makes it the fastest-growing segment of the publishing industry . As well , a survey by Edison Research found that audiobook consumers were listening to more titles , with an average of 8.1 books in 2020 , up from 6.8 the prior year . In Canada , according to Good e-Reader Editor-in-Chief Michael Kozlowski , audiobooks accounted for 5 % of all book sales in 2019 ( up
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