Listening Beyond Words: The Audiobook Phenomenon and Its Global Appeal

Listening Beyond Words: The Audiobook Phenomenon and Its Global Appeal

It happened again last week. I was at a networking group, then on a prospect call, and then with a client, and the same question came up.

“Should I have an audiobook?”

The quick and easy answer is yes, of course, you should have an audiobook. Why do you ask?

I suspect people ask the question about audiobooks because they don’t understand how they are made and they don’t understand what cost is involved.

Let me talk about the necessity of audiobooks first.

Why it’s NECESSARY that you have an audiobook

Audiobooks have emerged as a powerful force in the world of content consumption, and their popularity continues to surge year after year.

By recognizing the potential of audiobooks and staying ahead of this trend, authors can utilize this new but emerging platform to market themselves and their books.

We do audiobooks separately at Master Book Builders, partly because not everyone is ready for this and partly because it really is a whole separate project. It requires attention to detail and the use of voiceover actors.

(Can YOU, the author, read your own book? You can. But it may make the project that much longer, given you are not trained in this discipline. There is far more to it than just reading your book out loud.)

Audiobook Readership Demographics:

According to an Audio Publishers Association’s Sales Survey, publishers’ audiobook revenue increased by 10% in 2022 to $1.8 billion. This represents a double-digit growth in the 11th straight year. The survey findings reveal that half of the 18+ U.S. population has ever listened to an audiobook; of those, 57% of listeners are aged 18-44. This means the majority of audiobook listeners are not your grandma or grandpa. Although they, too, listen to audiobooks. So, understand that this market is growing in all demographics.
In my research, I found this interesting ( for our children’s books authors):

One area … is the number of parents who have children listening to audiobooks. 56% percent of audiobook listeners with children say their kids listen to audiobooks. This number, while down from the 61% measured in 2022, is still significantly higher than the 35% reported in the pre-pandemic study of 2020.

Naturally, I do have to note that more women than men listen to audiobooks. I don’t have any research stating why this is so, but it is. It’s a small margin, 25% to 22%, but it’s there.

Since much of the work we do is with business professionals, I will share that education and income do play a part. The more educated and affluent among us seem to like audiobooks over print. I would suggest this is because they can listen in the car or on a walk or while doing any number of other tasks that require the use of their hands (working out, would be one – I am sure many professionals work out and listen to audiobooks while they do.)

Now let’s get into the reasons people prefer audiobooks over print

As mentioned above, convenience is a big reason people choose to listen to a book rather than sit and read it. I’ve heard people say they don’t like having to turn pages! (and others who say they do)

Accessibility is another. This serves our dyslexic community, those who are visually impaired, and the blind. Listening to a well-produced audiobook gives them the same joy as print books give many others.

Efficiency plays into this when you consider the fact that you can do other things while you listen to your book, perhaps on a plane or a train or a bus or a long car trip. Or any number of other things. No doubt you can think of several more.

One thing you might not consider is that some people just love the sound of narration. The sound of a voice conveying the context of the book brings the book alive.

Some folks who prefer audiobooks say it improves comprehension. According to Audioblog,

Research has demonstrated that people who listen to audiobooks are able to recall more information than those who read from a traditional book. Additionally, studies have found that people who listen to audiobooks retain information better over time compared to those who read books in the traditional way. 

However, Time Magazine reported no difference in comprehension in this 2016 study by Beth Rogowsky, an associate professor of education at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania,

One group in her study listened to sections of Unbroken, a nonfiction book about World War II by Laura Hillenbrand, while a second group read the same parts on an e-reader. She included a third group that both read and listened at the same time. Afterward, everyone took a quiz designed to measure how well they had absorbed the material. “We found no significant differences in comprehension between reading, listening, or reading and listening simultaneously,” Rogowsky says.

At this point, more work needs to be done before we can say it increases comprehension. I submit that if you believe it does, then perhaps it does.

The Audiobook Market

Statistics underscore the tremendous growth of audiobooks:

As noted above and deserving a reminder here, in 2020, the global audiobook market was valued at approximately $3.5 billion.

The audiobook market is projected to grow at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of over 20% from 2021 to 2028.

Over 71,000 audiobooks were published in 2020, marking a substantial increase from previous years.

And audiobook consumption saw a 12% year-over-year increase in 2020.

We are witnessing, right now, in the world of publishing, Indie publishing or traditional publishing, a focus on simultaneously releasing books in print, digital, and audio formats. Authors and publishers understand that they must meet the reader where the reader is, and many readers are using headphones.

Interested in how much of this market our friend Amazon owns? According to Wordsrated,

• Amazon’s Audible has a U.S. market share in the audiobook publishing category of 63.4% as of 2022.
• U.S. Audiobook publishing generated $1.6 billion as of 2021.

The production of your audiobook

I can’t go into detail here because I don’t do this part. Tom does. He is in charge of making your audiobook sound excellent.

This includes working with our voiceover actors and helping authors understand the technical issues surrounding the production of an audiobook.

Such as keeping the ums and ahs to a limit. Tom has to take all those out, so when the author reads, well, often there are so many it creates hours of work. Voiceover actors are trained on how to keep those hiccups out of their narration.

Also, the flow of the sound. This means how fast or slow should the book be read? It always depends on the book and somewhat on the author, but a book that is read too fast or too slow can leave a sour taste in the listener’s mind.

Did you know your audiobook needs its own ISBN?

Do you know the specifications for your audiobook cover – ACX has some parameters to watch out for.

Did you know that just as a visitor to your Amazon page can see a reader’s sample text, they can also listen to a sample of the audiobook?

The cost of professionally producing an audiobook varies. We’ve seen investments from $3000 to $6000 and above. The real cost is in having that professionally developed book for your readers. Not something you found on Fiverr for $350. And by the way, if your book has extensive graphics to describe, or you want your novel to have several characters’ voices, be prepared to pay for that.

Understand that we, those of us who do audiobooks, care as much about the quality of the product as you do.

These are all important things to know about having an audiobook in addition to digital and print. It does not replace either one of those; it enhances them.

Share your questions in the comments. We aim to serve.