Audiobooks enter their entertainment era

It is easy to forget that the audiobook is not a new format. Novels, stories, and poems – much of what the modern world knows best through the written word – all have their origins in the oral traditions of the ancient world. Even though the audio “book” may predate the written word, recorded audio versions of books, which were first developed in the 1930s, have still never really reached success at scale. 

Thanks to the mainstream popularity of digital audio consumption on multi-format platforms, the audiobook is finally on the cusp of its golden era, in large part because it is evolving from an educational context to an entertainment context. As of Q4 2023, 57% of audiobook listeners now listen for entertainment, which is 12 percentage points more than listeners who listen to learn something new. While an important moment for the format, it also raises some important questions about the infrastructural barriers that have long kept audiobooks niche – not to mention the future of physical formats.

Audio versions of books were first recorded on vinyl and reel-to-reel tapes to provide accessible reading material for the visually impaired in the 1930s. 30 years later, cassette tapes helped make audiobooks more accessible, portable, and affordable, but their primary use remained educational.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the popularity of audiobooks, known then as “books on tape”, reached its highest point. However, even with the portability of the Sony Walkman and the improved sound quality of the CD format, audiobooks never really became a mainstream entertainment option that could rival music, television, or even radio.

With the digital audiobook format pioneered by Apple and Audible, the foundation was laid for audiobooks to step out of their educational confines and into the same entertainment space as digital music. Like Spotify has done with podcasts, the company’s recent foray into audiobooks has accelerated that transition, bringing the format into direct competition with music and podcasts for consumer attention and time.

Already the result is a boon to business, with the Association of American Publishers (AAP) reporting a 7.1% increase in industry revenue in 2024 versus 2023. However, the 26.1% growth in audiobook revenues that is helping to drive that overall industry growth correlates with the decline of physical audio, i.e., “books on tape”, which are down 36.2%.

In an industry facing uncertainty regarding the future of physical media, the rise of the audiobook should bring more celebration than trepidation, but music streaming has demonstrated that digital salvation comes with some serious downstream effects to consider. The music industry has rebounded since the early 2000s, to be sure, but not without codifying the devaluation of music. Without infrastructural guardrails in place, audiobooks face the same risk, especially if physical book consumption becomes less and less important. However, the audiobook listener segment seems to be separate from the book reader segment, so audiobook popularity does not necessarily translate to decreased book interest. As such, while physical audio may have lost out to digital audio, books and music are not necessarily destined to meet the same fate.

AAP figures indicate a growth in physical book revenue in 2024, which may lend credence to Spotify’s hypothesis undergirding its bullish outlook on video podcasts: Consumers will increasingly move between formats so long as they are continuously entertained by the content itself. The fact that Hollywood directors like Sam Mendes are now producing audiobooks, according to The Guardian, provides further evidence of audio’s applicability to a number of different formats and vice versa. Who is to say videobooks are not on the horizon?