The Audiobook: Is hearing a book as good as reading one?
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Is hearing a book as good as reading one?
This is possibly the wrong question to be asking in 2013. However, I will give my answer to this question after I share some amazing information with you. First of all, according to a recent CBS News report, Audiobooks have become a $1.2 Billion dollar industry. Evidently, there are a tremendous amount of people who enjoy listening to audiobooks.
This is possibly the wrong question to be asking in 2013. However, I will give my answer to this question after I share some amazing information with you. First of all, according to a recent CBS News report, Audiobooks have become a $1.2 Billion dollar industry. Evidently, there are a tremendous amount of people who enjoy listening to audiobooks.
Advantages of an Audiobook
Long distance runner? Listen to your favorite audiobook while you enjoy the scenery go by, exercising your body and your mind at the same time.
Commuting to work? Why not listen to Storytellers: The Pursuit of Happiness while commuting to and from work: car, subway, bus, train, ferry, bicycle, walking, your audiobook is the perfect companion. A good audiobook can make your daily commute seem like a walk around the block.
Multitasking: Is there anyone left on the planet who only does one thing at a time anymore? In this busy world we live in, time is a precious commodity. Very few people can afford to do only one thing at a time nowadays.
Who is listening to audiobooks?
74% of those who download audiobooks through public libraries are women. Most are between the ages of 30 and 59 with a college or postgraduate degree, a study by Overdrive downloading service showed.
Most audiobook listeners are commuters. According to the The Times, they make up 47 percent, while 25 percent listen as they’re working around the house, and 23 percent listen while exercising.
Matthew Thornton of Audible, Amazon’s audiobook publisher:
“We’re seeing heavy growth among younger listeners, people in and getting out of college who are part of the emerging app culture.”
“We’re seeing heavy growth among younger listeners, people in and getting out of college who are part of the emerging app culture.”
A Wall Street Journal story (The New Explosion In Audiobooks) described how sales of audiobooks have “jumped by double digits in recent years,” and “shifts in digital technology have broadened the pool of potential listeners to include anyone with a smartphone.” The New York Times noted in June that audiobook sales went up 22 percent from 2011 to 2012.
Digital Innovation
Digital innovation isn’t just changing the way audio books are created, packaged and sold.
It’s starting to reshape the way readers consume literature, creating a new breed of literary omnivores who see narrated books and text as interchangeable.
Last year, the audio book producer and retailer Audible unveiled a long-awaited syncing feature that allows book lovers to switch seamlessly between an e-book and a digital audio book, picking up the story at precisely the same sentence.
So far, Audible, which is owned by Amazon, has paired some 26,000 ebooks with professional narrations. The company is adding more than 1,000 titles a month and aims to eventually bring the number to close to 100,000.
Finally, is hearing a book as good as reading one?
Yes, hearing a book is as good as reading one, there can be no doubt about that. The evidence overwhelmingly points this fact out, and most experts predict that the audiobook trend will continue to increase in the future. We are talking about a Billion dollar industry, after all. The Audiobook industry is big, and it will only get bigger as innovation and technology responds to the demand for more audiobooks in the ears of more people…
I’d like to finish by inviting you to listen to a preview of my new audiobook: Storytellers: The Pursuit of Happiness. It is performed, in multiple voices, by the talented voice actor, Mr. Rich Crankshaw. You will surely agree that he has made this book come alive with his skills as a voice actor. His voice range is rich and wide in diversity, able to play multiple characters, as he does in this book. This audiobook will be coming out very soon. Be sure to get your copy early. I thank you in advance for your support.
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