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Audiobooks - Fastest Growing Format In Publishing
Audiobooks are now the fastest-growing format in the publishing business. A twenty-one percent increase from 2015 has been noted in both the US and Canada.
Stephen King last year released his short story, “Drunken Fireworks,” as an audiobook four months before its print publication...
Digital downloads are fueling the explosion: Revenue from downloaded audiobooks in the U.S. grew 38% last year from 2014, according to the Association of American Publishers. Meanwhile, revenue from hardcovers and paperbacks grew by 8% and 3%, respectively, and e-books declined 11%.
In his 1961 book Return from the Stars, sf great Stanislaw Lem wrote about what he called a lecton:
But optons were little used, the sales-robot told me. The public preferred lectons - lectons read out loud, they could be set to any voice, tempo, and modulation. Only scientific publications having a very limited distribution were still printed, on a plastic imitation paper.
Via WSJ.
The format fits neatly in the sweet spot of changing technology and changing behavior. Carrying around a pocket-size entertainment center stuffed with games, news, music, videos and books has conditioned people to seek out constant entertainment, whether walking to a meeting or sitting in a doctor’s office. For more multitasking book-lovers, audiobooks are the answer...
The bookstore resembled, instead, an electronic laboratory. The books were crystals with recorded contents. They can be read the aid of an opton, which was similar to a book but had only one page between the covers. At a touch, successive pages of the text appeared on it.
(Read more about the lecton)
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