Visitors to the Shanghai Book Fair listen to audiobooks.
Online Literature and Audiobooks Shine at Shanghai Book Fair
In 2018, more than 661 million Chinese people listened to online audio programs for entertainment and learning, accounting for 82 percent of Internet users, according to research firm Nielsen-CCData. [Source: Shine]
Boom Times for the Long Listen
Literary adaptations of “the long listen” delight growing numbers of fans; the more work audiences put in to focus on a long listen, the more they feel nourished and positive about the experience. [Source: The Guardian]
AI Reads Books Out Loud in Authors' Voices
Chinese search engine Sogou is creating artificial-intelligence lookalikes to read popular novels in authors' voices. But most people prefer audiobooks that are "professionally narrated" by authors, actors or famous public figures. [Source: BBC.com]
How do the podcast and audiobook industries intersect and feed into each other and amplify each other rather than simply compete for listeners?
Ten ways in which podcasts, audiobooks, and oral storytelling at large are interconnected, particularly now that more and more print books have an accompanying audio version published simultaneously. [Source: Bookriot]
Audiobook Publishers' Revenue Nears $1 Billion
APA 2018 Sales Report: "More People Are Listening Than Ever" [Source: VoiceoverExtra]
Audiobooks Had a Great 2018
Importantly, content production is also up. [Source: Forbes]
Book Listening a Growing Choice
The biggest numbers came from General Non-fiction, History/Biography/Memoir and Self-help. [Source: The Daily Star]
Russian Heavyweight in Social Media Sees and Alliance with Audio Publishers to Be a Way to Catch the International Audio Wave.
Publishers and industry observers say the project could be very promising, not least because a component of the roll-out would include the detection and blocking of pirated audio content, which has been a problem in Russian social media, as it has with ebooks. [Source: Publishing Perspectives]
New Study on Spanish-Language Audiobooks from U.S. Publishers
Prediction: By year’s end, there will be more than 10,000 Spanish-language audiobooks on world markets—a head-turning jump from less than 6,000 at the end of 2017. [Source: Publishing Perspectives]
Panorama Project Releases New List
Panorama Picks provides local booksellers with quarterly lists of under-the-radar fiction, nonfiction, and young adult backlist titles library patrons are waiting to borrow. [Source: BookWeb]
End of Audiobook Snobbery As Scientists Find Reading and Listening Activate the Same Parts of the Brain
Researchers scanned the brains in both the listening and reading conditions to compare brain activity and found they were virtually identical. They also found that words activated specific parts of the brain depending on whether they were visual, tactile, numeric, locational, violent, mental, emotional and or social. [Source: Telegraph]
I’d Rather Read with My Ears
The Iliad was an audiobook before it was a printed one. [Source: Wall Street Journal]