The Connecticut Corpse Caper is currently being made into an audiobook. How exciting is that? Can’t wait to hear it. Of course, given I can’t find the time to promote myself and the Triple Threat Investigation Agency ebooks and hardcover books, I’m not sure how I’ll manage to market this one. But where there’s hope, there’s … hope.
Audiobooks were up an impressive 20% across the publishing realm in 2017, while print books were up by a mere 1.5% and ebooks <gulp> were down by 5.4%. In fact, audiobook sales in the U.S. in the last two years have amounted to $2.1 billion (per Scribd data). Not too shabby.
Here are a few more not-too-shabby facts based on a survey done by the research firm Management Practice. These can be found in an interesting July 2019 article—“Audio Publishers Association Survey: Nearly $1 Billion in 2018 US Sales”—by Porter Anderson (Editor-in-Chief at Publishing Perspectives and Co-owner/Director at The Hot Sheet). 
· Publisher receipts in 2018 totaled almost 1 billion dollars, up 24.5 percent from 2017
· Unit sales were up 27.3 percent over 2017
· Audiobook listening is on the rise, according to Edison Research and Triton Digital’s The Infinite Dial 2019, which shows 50 percent of Americans age 12 and older have listened to an audiobook, up from 44 percent in 2018
· Audiobook titles published in 2018 totaled 44,685 (an increase of 5.8 percent over 2017)
· The ages of listeners: 55 percent of all audiobook listeners are under the age of 45, and 51 percent of frequent listeners are aged 18 to 44 years
· Time for listening: 56 percent of audiobook listeners say that they are making “new” time to listen to audiobooks, and subsequently consuming more books
· Where they listen: 74 percent of audiobook consumers listen in their car, up from 69 percent in 2018; the home is the second-most popularly cited spot at 68 percent, down from 71 percent in 2018, and this coincides with increased adoption of in-dash car players
· Smart speakers provide growth opportunities as penetration among audiobook consumers is nearing twice the US average—42 percent of audiobook listeners age 18 and older own a smart speaker
· Podcasts: More than half (55 percent) of audiobook listeners tell researchers for the survey that they’ve also listened to a podcast in the last month, continuing a strong historical association between podcast listeners and audiobook listeners
· The most popular genres sold in 2018 in audio were general fiction; mysteries and thrillers/suspense; and science-fiction/fantasy
I used to listen to audiobooks back in the 80s (yeah, dating myself, huge sigh) when they weren’t popular. In fact, they were pretty limited then, but they did exist. Didn’t catch on very much though, probably because the quality—unlike today—wasn’t there. Still, I rather enjoyed driving through the countryside, listening to Sherlock Holmes.
Personally, I love reading print books, holding them in my hand, flipping pages, earmarking them (I know, I know, slap on wrist). But I could get used to the audio version. Given I’m/we’re always running somewhere and doing something, it makes total sense to be listening while running and doing!
So, did you hear about . . . ?
The Writer's Grab-Bag 
Great post. I’m still getting used to audiobooks. For me, since they take longer to complete than reading, I often shy away.
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Hi. I didn’t know that audio books were rising in popularity. I haven’t listened to any. I prefer to read books. Bye till next time!
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Me, too . . . but with my schedule(s) these days, audible may be the only way for me to “read” going forward.
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That sounds…. great, for people who can afford to have their books narrated. I wonder what this will mean in ten, fifteen years. Do you think people will stop writing and simply start narrating stories and selling?
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That’s entirely possible . . . but, then, you’d have to have some voice training, I should think.
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