Listen And Learn: Observations On Audiobooks

Beating The Drums For Audio Book Month

Okay, so I’m a little late on this one, but at least I’m on record now. Celebrate, audio fans—it’s Audio Book Month!

I really wish I could tell you more about it, but I cannot find a press release anywhere. Many of the bloggers who have noted this holiday suggest that it’s the brainchild of the Audiobook Publisher’s Association … but alas, a search for that phrase on the APA website also comes up empty.

A phrase search on Google finds 12,400 mentions of “Audio Book Month,” so I guess I should be glad that the word’s getting out. I mean, I could be a champion of Soyfoods, whose Month managed a mere 1,570 hits, and which are considerably less delectable than ripping good prose.

Just for fun, I conducted a Google phrase search for a number of such Months, selected utterly randomly and unscientifically.

What does this mean? Well, to the good, it means that the audiobook industry can be grateful that its publicity difficulties aren’t nearly as sticky as those facing its caramel colleagues. Preparedness Month? Well what did you expect? Its publicists lived up to their name.

I am disappointed that Family Month could be nearly quadrupled by bike enthusiasts, but it’s hard to focus on the family when both spouses are blogging about posting. A tip of the hat, meanwhile, to the Karastan juggernaut. Seriously—everybody knows noodles, but who ever heard of Karastan? (It’s a carpet manufacturer, not Borat’s adopted home.)

Ah well, this month is our month and I’ve now done my part. 12,401 and counting!

Extrapolating Podcast Data Into Audiobook Promise

While I wait for the publishing world to catch the tide of audio textbooks, I wait patiently for solid numbers that prove this market will boom. But this genre has barely launched, and bankable numbers just do not exist yet. Short of persuading a research university to produce an unbiased and statistically reliable study--hey, I'm working on it--I'm left to extrapolate from other data that students are ready to embrace audio-based learning.

Consider these podcast numbers, including the fact that the audience for audio podcasts grew 38 percent last year. Podcasts, quite frankly, are a bit of a hassle. You install feed readers, you subscribe, you connect devices, you sync devices, and finally you can listen to what you grab. And then do it all over again. Admittedly, an MP3 player audiobook requires the same waltz, but just once. If people are willing to consume information in a format that requires frequently repeatable data download action, they ought to be even more amenable to material you need load only once.

The Podcasting News article focuses chiefly on advertising, which has seemingly little to do with an audiobook audience. Except for this: "Podcast users are far more likely to have attained at least a college degree, and are also more likely to live in households earning in excess of $75,000 per year, than Americans who have not consumed podcasts."

To summarize, the chief audience for audio textbooks--collegians--are the audience most friendly to consuming information through earbuds.  Oh yeah, and these people make decent money. Publishers, start your initiatives!

Gas Prices Highlight Big Audiobook Benefits: Greener And Cheaper

A recent Publisher's Weekly article suggests that the high cost of fuel is hitting book publishers too. PW's Jim Milliot quotes one publisher estimating that production costs have jumped 10 to 40 percent this year, depending upon how much paper stock you may have had inventoried. Apparently, the higher cost of energy has triggered three different paper price hikes this year.

If e-books are ever going to make a big move, it seems now might be a good time. They don't require paper, and they require less fuel (electricity yes, transportation no). Audiobooks provide exactly the same benefit, and listeners can enjoy them on devices they're accustomed to using. This isn't to say that an iPod doesn't have a learning curve, but a whole lot more people don't leave home without one than are carrying around Kindles.

For all of these reasons, textbooks seem especially well-suited to digital formats. We don't call them "weighty tomes" just because they harbor brilliant insights--500 pages make for darned heavy books. They use more of that increasingly expensive paper, and the added weight sucks up more of the liquid gold we call "diesel."

It's shameless self-promotion, but it's also quite true: it's a good time to try audio textbooks.