And after several years of solid increases
in audiobook sales, publishers are taking steps to cash in.
In 2017
audiobook sales rose by 12 % in volume and 15 % in value and digital audio now accounts for 5 % of consumer book spending.
Whether you go with a publisher or go on your own, you probably won't get rich
off audiobook sales, even with an audiobook that sticks for a while and sells well.
It's important to note that neither you nor your narrator will get 50 percent of a
full audiobook sale.
Instead, I went to ACX, which is the division of Amazon that handles the entire process of putting a book on Audible, including rights management, choosing a narrator, paying the narrator, and receiving payments
for audiobook sales.
As we reported last month, the US Audiobook Publishers Association has reported a third year of strong
audiobook sales growth.
The Association of American Publishers have just released their new SnapShot report and they found that digital
audiobook sales increased 37.7 % from January to September 2015.
Audio Rights Holders (authors, publishing houses or anyone who owns audio rights to authors» works) typically see 15 % royalty or less
on audiobook sales from industry audiobook producers / publishers (such as Recorded Books, Brilliance, etc.), and I'm being generous here.
In my Feb. 2016 article 6 Low - Cost Avenues for
Greater Audiobook Sales in InD» tale Magazine, I suggested to authors that they look for podcasts and seek interviews on shows that are a good fit for their book.
Digital sales increased 2 % compared to the prior year and represented 16 % of Consumer revenues for the quarter, driven by the growth in
downloadable audiobook sales.
And thanks to devices like Alexa becoming more widespread, I think we'll see more and
more audiobook sales in 2018 and beyond.
Last year
audiobook sales saw another strong gain of 30 % and major publishers brought in $ 343.4 million dollars.
And, many authors get the bulk of their sales from an ACX program which heavily discounts books cross-platform, with
audiobook sales as low as $ 1.99.
They lump audiobooks and ebooks into a single digital category and the only the only they say is the decline in ebook sales were not as pronounce
because audiobook sales have dramatically increased.
Some publishers and authors are still loony enough to consider it a copyright violation, or they're simply too afraid to
lose audiobook sales.
Cobb will tell the assembly on Friday that the APA estimates that in 2015,
audiobook sales totaled more than $ 1.77 billion (# 1.42 billion) in the States — and that's up 20.7 percent over the association's 2014 figure.
While the APA doesn't break out these figures by genre, it does see adult titles accounting for 90.4 percent of
overall audiobook sales.
The Book Industry Study Group estimates that total U.S. books sales in 2006 were nearly $ 36 billion, so with
audiobook sales at roughly a billion dollars, the industry is nothing to sneeze at.
Exact audiobook sales are a bit hard to track, because Audible the leading retail outlet does not divulge specifics and speaks in broad generalities.
Michael Kozlowski of Good e-Reader and Jeremy Greenfield of Digital Book World discuss the recent IDPF and Book Expo America conference, the ongoing battle between Amazon and Hachette, Barnes and Noble
suspending audiobook sales and the store within a store concept for bookselling.
UK audiobook sales have doubled in the last five years, with audiobook purchases now accounting for 5 % of consumer book spending in the UK (Nielsen UK Books & Consumers» Survey, 2017).
The Association of American Publishers said that
audiobook sales rose 30 % in January and 42 % in February compared with the same period in 2015.
(Ponder this section a little more and you can understand why TTS playback is unlikely to ever meaningfully impact
on audiobook sales.)