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AUDIOBOOKS Audiobook Sales Zoom To $1.2 BILLION In 2019 With More Than 60,000 New Titles June 22, 2020  (VOXtra) - The audiobook rocket is soaring to ever new heights. In 2019, U.S. audiobook sales reached $1.2 billion - up 16% from the previous year - with a corresponding increase in units sold, according to a recent survey of publishers by the Audio Publishers Association (APA). And publishers reported that 60,303 new titles were produced in 2019, which is 18% more than in 2018. It's the eighth consecutive year of double-digit revenue growth for audiobook publishers, and is "simply phenomenal," says Chris Lynch, co-chair of the APA's Research Committee, and president and publisher of Simon & Schuster Audio. "Even more encouraging are the continued upward trends in consumer listening behavior," Lynch adds, "both in how many titles they listen to per year, and in their finding more time in their day to listen." These findings come from two annual surveys conducted earlier this year for the APA: a sales survey of publishers by independent research firm InterQ Research, and consumer survey by Edison Research. MORE AUDIOBOOKS HEARD The APA reports that in
addition to the sales increase, Edison Research's national survey of U.S. audiobook listeners ages 18 and up found that the average
number of audiobooks listened to per year increased to 8.1 in 2020, up
from 6.8 in 2019. Also:
ABOUT THE SURVEYS The
consumer survey by Edison Research was a national survey of Americans age 18 years and older who have
ever listened to a complete audiobook, the APA explains. Edison Research completed 1044
online interviews in January/February 2020. The data was weighted to the
audiobook market, as measured by The Infinite Dial, a nationally
representative survey of the American media landscape conducted by
Edison Research and Triton Digital.
The sales survey was conducted by InterQ Research in the spring of 2020 to
gather industry sales data, including gross sales, sales by various
formats, and channel discounts. This is a national survey of APA members who publish audiobooks. Twenty-four
publishers provided data, including Audible Inc., Hachette Audio,
HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, and Simon &
Schuster. Formed
in 1986, the Audio Publishers Association (APA) is "The Voice of the Audiobook Industry" - a not-for-profit
trade association that advocates the common, collective business
interests of audio publishers, and is also a networking,
educational and information forum for its members. For more about the APA, visit www.audiopub.org. |
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Comments (1)
j. valentino
6/22/2020 at 3:50 PM
It's just too bad that the majority of titles are by unknown authors and the narrators have been put in a position to have to do the work of recording and editing for the possibility of royalties. LMAO. Audiobooks are hard to do, very time consuming, and the talent is lucky to get $3.52 every couple of months. Good luck with that. The quality of the narrations have also gone down considerably. Mispronunciations abound these days.
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