Free word

If audiobooks could talk, I wonder what they would say to us. For a decade now the format has been the loudest among the new markets. Not as insistent, perhaps, as e-books once were, but certainly now playing a more interesting tune. From Spotify’s arrival on the scene to the likely encroachment of artificial voice, this is a sector that should be listened to for its ability to not just amplify the traditional market, but also drown it out.

According to Nielsen, spending on audiobooks in the UK will rise to above £200m, if the rate of growth recorded over the first seven months is maintained for the rest of the year, it’s post-pandemic slowdown now behind it. Of particular interest is the market for non-fiction audio, which has now overtaken sales of audio fiction, with some titles now matching their print book sales. For example, Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act has now sold more than 38,000 copies in audio, “matching its success on the print Total Consumer Market”, its publisher Canongate has noted. The continuing development of the podcast sector speaks to a wider market potential too, albeit the business models around these two different parts of the same spoken word world have not yet aligned.

But audio might also want to have a word about some things. The production of this week’s Audiobook Preview has not been an easy one, with not enough audio information provided at the point when we need it, and too few audiobooks made early enough to actually preview. We’d like to repeat the exercise quarterly, as a guide not just for booksellers, reviewers and audio-producers, but also as a window into this particular creative act. It remains to be seen if this is possible. Kelli Fairbrother, co-founder and c.e.o of start-up xigxag, is worth listening to here. She calls for audio to be produced earlier, released at the same time as other formats, and for there to be access (pre-publication) for reviewers, influencers and others who could push the medium.

For booksellers audio is already a difficult format, locked out of selling the spoken word as they have been e-books

Exclusivity, too, remains a problem. If you want to listen to Rubin’s book, or indeed purchase Canongate’s very interesting new project A History of Women in 101 Objects in audio, then you’ll need to be a customer of Audible (or a library user via Bolinda). Indeed once you dig in it is remarkable which titles are not available on competing sites, and I wonder if that’s a good look for a sector that otherwise prides itself on fairness, even if such deals were historically understandable.

For booksellers audio is already a difficult format, locked out of selling the spoken word as they have been e-books. Both Libro.fm and xigxag offer affiliate opportunities – based on customers linking their accounts to bookshops – as will Bookshop.org once it launches its e-book and audiobook site. One wonders how much more audio might sell with a few thousand additional in-store advocates across the UK, ideally as an add-on to reading not a displacement of it.

If audiobooks could talk, they might ask that now they are no longer considered the Cinderella part of the business,what is their new role. Casting for that begins now.