Listening

It is estimated that audiobook sales have more than doubled in the last six years, with a significant rise during the pandemic. There has been double digit sales growth in the English speaking markets  for the last three years ( the US is by far the biggest market for audio books, but the UK and Australasian markets are growing rapidly ) and more audiobooks are being produced than ever before. UK book sales are still overwhelmingly (80%) of printed books, but the digital market has grown at the expense of print during the pandemic, possibly after the Treasury reduced VAT on digital books to zero, in line with printed books, in May 2020.  Digital fiction sales is the fastest growing element of this market.*

In terms of retail, the giant Audible (Amazon) dominates, but there is an increase in subscription services like Scribd and, this year, local libraries are seeing an unprecedented surge in audio book borrowing. This is probably also tied in with COVID, as reading, of whatever kind, has increased during our different stages of confinement.

Incidentally, Neilsens also finds that audiobooks reach the younger market, with big numbers in the 18 – 24 age group. In the UK the average audiobook user is an urban male, aged between 18 and 34, who listens while working, commuting or running outdoors. Given that women read more than men and younger men in particular, this is tapping into a new market, good news for the book industry.

Claret Press, my publisher, is expanding its audiobook offering too and the recording, by Essential Audiobooks, of Plague is well underway. The reader, RSC Associate actress and voice coach, Alison Bomber, is on the final few chapters, then there’s the editing and the music and finally the audiobook comes into being.

I haven’t heard it yet, though I have heard Alison read and she’s very good. By a strange coincidence I met up with Elizabeth Bergstone, the actress who read the audiobook of my short story collection,  The Village, only last week. A long time Los Angelina, Elizabeth now lives in North Carolina, so we had been corresponding during the recent US elections. Originally from south London, she was over to visit her sister for Christmas. She gave me lots of tips about online speaking, having listened to my recent talk for the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster Libraries ( she thought my delivery poor ). I learned a lot, for example about Forvo, the online pronunciation dictionary ( which tells me that the name of the engineering genius Sir Joseph Bazalgette, is pronounced with a soft, not a hard ‘g’, as I had thought, so that caller to my session was correct ).

The good news is that Essential Audiobooks provide a ‘taster’ for promotional purposes, so I’ll make that available here as soon as I have it. I don’t know if the upsurge in audio will continue into this new lockdown period, when only essential workers will be commuting, but there will be plenty of joggers, like me and plenty of walkers and gardeners too, who will be outdoors at the first sign of spring.

And already the days are growing longer… but there’s still time to enjoy a book!

*Data from Neilsens, AAP, IBIS.