Although audiobooks have been around since the early 1930s, the audiobook sector has experienced exponential growth over the past decade. According to the Audio Publishers Association, audiobook sales have doubled year over year and are expected to continue growing in a similar manner. Due to the immense popularity of this format, the audiobooks category is rapidly changing, with publishers and companies experimenting with new ways of creating and delivering these stories. Here are just a few exciting audiobook trends to keep an eye out for in the future.
Multivoice Narration
Historically, fictional stories that utilize multiple characters have usually been voiced by a single narrator who changes their pitch or tone to represent the different characters speaking in the audiobook version. However, more companies are experimenting with using an actual cast when recording books with many characters. A high profile example of this is Audible’s recent release of Geroge Orwell’s 1984, featuring the voices of famous TV and film actors Andrew Garfield, Cynthia Ervio, and Andrew Scott. This will not only potentially attract fans of these actors to audiobooks, but it will also create an immersive experience for any listener.
Audio Subscription Services
Spotify has recently made waves in the audiobooks sector after introducing their audiobooks streaming service in the United States in November 2023. Instead of using the credit system like Audible—Amazon’s audiobooks company—where subscribers have a certain number of credits they can use to listen to entire books, Spotify now provides their premium subscribers with fifteen hours of access to their digital audiobook library per month. Listeners can also pay an additional fee for more hours of audiobook listening each month. While there is hesitation that Spotify’s streaming service might negatively impact authors in a similar manner to how musical artists have been affected by music streaming, the audiobook subscription model seems to be a promising way to consistently reach new audiobook listeners.
AI Narration
Like all areas of publishing, artificial intelligence has entered the audiobooks space. Currently, large companies like Apple and Google Books are experimenting with using synthetic voices to narrate some of their audio titles. The titles chosen are often backlist titles that might not have originally had an audio version. Because AI narration is often much less expensive than using human voices, it opens the door for publishers to experiment with what books they will create an audio version of.
Other companies, like Storytel, are putting this decision in the reader’s hands by allowing users to choose from three different synthetic voices that will read their stories. Because this is a new development in the audiobooks space, it is still difficult to predict how AI will change audiobooks, but it seems like an integral part in the future of this sector.
Written by Kari Olson.