Audio Revenue Predicted to Overtake Ebook Sales by 2023

Audiobook industry leaders believe the potential market is about 50 percent of the fiction market, as it is now in Sweden

BY Jane Friedman

https://hotsheetpub.com/

In June, German-based Bookwire and the Digital Publishing Report hosted All About Audio, a virtual conference on the worldwide growth of spoken-word audio content—currently enjoying double-digit growth year on year. The conference’s scope included not just audiobooks but also podcasts, smart speakers, and voice assistants.

Growth in audio will come from many parts of the world and from multiple formats and business models, said Javier Celaya of Dosdoce. He said audio can be divided into two industries, the audiobook industry and the podcast industry, both of which have healthy annual growth rates: 15 to 25 percent for audiobooks and 25 to 30 percent for podcasts. These growth rates would allow audiobook and podcast revenues to surpass ebook sales by 2023. Although there are twice as many podcast listeners as audiobook listeners, Celaya said that each audiobook listener generates more than 2.4 times the annual revenue of a podcast listener. This could change, however, with the rise of podcast subscription services. The good news: Celaya says the data doesn’t show any cannibalization of audiobook listening due to podcast listening.

Subscription services are growing at a faster rate outside the US—in Europe and emerging markets. And they are growing faster than audiobook unit sales, still the dominant model in the US (which is perhaps not the happiest trend for big US publishers who have pulled out of subscription services due to profitability concerns). In Sweden, perhaps the most mature market for audiobooks—where subscription service Storytel is based—audio makes up half of all fiction sales. In time, Celaya expects to see a shift for the US and UK markets from unit sales to subscriptions. He also pointed to differences in the podcast market that might be a factor in behavior: in the US, the podcast market is driven by advertising revenues, while in Europe and emerging markets, it’s driven by paid subscriptions.

Each country or market is unique in its pattern of consumption, and in every country, local content and language predominate. Celaya said most audiobook and podcast consumption is in local languages, especially in countries with lower English fluency. Storytel’s Helena Gustafsson confirmed this, saying that 85 percent of listening in each Storytel market is in the local language: “It doesn’t matter where you live in the world, people tend to be attracted to the same stories, stories about love, adventure, and mystery or crime.” However, she continued, “Storytelling is global, but most stories are local. People tend to turn to their own language. … This is why we heavily invest in audiobooks in local languages. … People want to feel that the service they are enjoying is done for them. And having a lot of local authors gives them that feeling.” While some listeners may try English-language audiobooks, if they don’t have advanced enough language skills, they stop listening.

Some other notable market observations:

During her presentation, Gustafsson mentioned that Storytel looks at listener data to help them better understand their customers, personalize and curate content, and produce exclusive content. She showed an interesting and brief case study of an audiobook where, at the 14-minute mark, a huge number of listeners dropped off, more than at any other point in the story aside from the opening. When they checked to see why, they found that the narrator changed at that moment, apparently turning off some listeners.

Backlist is where most audio consumption happens in subscription services. Celaya said 70 percent of audio listening (both podcasts and audiobooks) is backlist content. And even despite differences across markets, there is no country where backlist listening dips below 50 percent of consumption, according to Gustafsson. However, when it comes to unit sales of audiobooks, 80 percent is frontlist (new titles).

New, transparent business models are emerging to compensate publishers for subscription model consumption, Celaya said. In such models, user behavior directly and clearly determines where subscription money goes. This might encourage more publishers to come onboard.

Bottom line: At the end of his presentation, Celaya was asked if he sees audiobook publishing as an offshoot of book publishing or as its own industry. He responded without hesitation: it is its own industry, especially if you include podcasting. “We see more and more stories being born originally in audio and stories that are written to become audio first, and maybe later on they become a print book,” Celaya said. “This could be a danger for the publishing community because there are more players coming with different content to play in this field. But at the same time it’s an opportunity to search for new voices, for new stories beyond traditional book format.”

The US publishing supply chain has been saved in part by Ingram, says Mike Shatzkin

BY Jane Friedman

https://hotsheetpub.com/

Industry vet Mike Shatzkin recently  wrote about how publishers’ ability to keep fulfilling orders during the pandemic has relied heavily on Ingram’s Guaranteed Availability Program, which uses print-on-demand to ship books to accounts within 24 hours. This program makes it possible to deliver “just about any quantity of books to just about any account in the world. With just about any return address you want on the package,” Shatzkin writes. Moreover, Shatzkin says, “In a recent week, five of the top 10 New York Times paperback bestsellers were being printed by [Ingram]. Those publishers know that they wouldn’t have been able to grab those sales with the normal book supply chain.”

However, one group is not so happy with Ingram: authors using IngramSpark. Print turnaround times for self-publishing authors using the service have been  22 to 24 business days (plus shipping time) since May. Author Andrew Shaffer tells us, “I’ve been working on a new self-published book, and a five–six week turnaround to get a single proof copy is unworkable. Then when I make a change to the cover or whatever, I have to wait five–six more weeks to see how it prints.” Meanwhile, Amazon KDP’s turnaround on print-on-demand orders is five to seven business days.

Fortunately, Ingram  announced earlier this month they’re investing in their print-on-demand operations across the globe and will hire hundreds of new employees to run new equipment now being installed. We asked IngramSpark if they could comment on how long it might take for turnaround times to improve but did not receive a response by press time.