Audiobooks by the numbers
Posted by: Mary Burkey
Two reports on how many audiobooks are published. First, according to this report published in American Libraries, there’s been a hefty number of youth titles over the past year:
According to “Table 6 / Audiobook Average Per-Volume Prices, 2008-2011,” on pages 526-527, the 2011 number of children’s audiobook titles published is 968 and the 2011 number of young adult audiobook titles published is 960.
Compare that with the numbers for print title below, and you’ll see that nearly nearly twenty percent of YA books are sold in audiobook format! But the children’s numbers point out all too well that there’s a much smaller number of audiobook titles for younger listeners each year. Note to producers: there’s a HUGE need for short chapter book audios for intermediate readers!
According to “Table 1 / American Book Production, 2007-2011,” on page 515, the 2011 number of children’s titles published is 20,127 and the 2011 number of young adult titles published is 4,905.
For the complete picture, you can check out BookStats, featuring net unit and dollar sales for the full U.S. publishing industry from 2008 through 2011 here.
To get a handle on how Amazon (owner of the Audible download company and Brilliance Audio) has made inroads on capturing audiobook publishing through actor/producers royalty stipends and actual bounty payments to authors, read this enlightening interview with Jason Ojalvo, Amazon’s VP of Content Creation. Dave Courvoisier interviewed Ojalvo for his Voice Over Blog, focusing on the first year of Amazon’s Audiobook Creation Exchange initiative. Here’s just one interesting snippet:
What other statistics can you share that show the growth and success of ACX?
Ojalvo: About 50 audiobooks go into production every week on ACX. And that number is continuing to grow. Many hundreds of titles are currently in production, and that number continues to swell every month.
And I’ll soon have numbers from the Audio Publishers Association on the growth of the industry as a whole. But one things clear: #JIAM2012 June is Audiobook Month is a great time to celebrate that listeners are consuming more audiobooks than ever, and the increasing production has only heightened the desire more more great titles!
