Saturday, September 1, 2007

Audiobook

Audiobook

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Cassette recording of Patrick O'Brian's The Mauritius Command
Cassette recording of Patrick O'Brian's The Mauritius Command

An audiobook is a recording of the contents of a book read aloud.

In 1933, anthropologist J.P. Harrington, drove the length of North America to record oral histories of Native American tribes on aluminum discs using a car battery-powered turntable. Audiobooks preserve the oral tradition of storytelling that J.P. Harrington pursued many years ago.[1]

Contents

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[edit] Formats

Audiobooks are usually distributed on CDs, cassette tapes, or digital formats (e.g., MP3 and Windows Media Audio).

The term "books on tape" is frequently used as a synonym for audiobooks, but casette tapes are no longer the dominant media for audiobooks. In 2005, Cassette-tape sales made up roughly 16% of the audiobook market,[2] with CDs sales accounting for 74% of the market, and downloadable audio books accounting for approximately 9%. In the United States, the most recent sales survey (performed by the Audio Publishers' Association in the summer of 2006 for the year 2005) estimated the industry to be worth 871 million US dollars. Current industry estimates hover at around two billion US dollars per year.

Most new popular titles put out by the major publishers are available in audio book format simultaneously with publication of the hardcover edition. There are approximately 25,000 current titles on cassette, CD, or downloadable format.

Unabridged audiobooks are word for word readings of a book, while abridged audio books have text edited out by the abridger. Audiobooks also come as fully dramatized versions of the printed book, sometimes calling upon a complete cast, music, and sound effects. Each spring, the Audie Awards are given to the top nominees for performance and production in several genre categories.

There are quite a few radio programs serializing books, sometimes read by the author or sometimes by an actor, most of them on the BBC.

[edit] Use, distribution and popularity

The popularity of portable music players such as the iPod has made audiobooks more accessible to people for portable listening. This has led to a boom in the creation of free audiobooks from Librivox and similar projects that take works from the public domain and enlist volunteers to read them. Audiobooks also can be created with text to speech software, although the quality of synthesised speech may suffer by comparison to voice talent recordings. Audiobooks in the private domain are also distributed online by for-profit companies such as Media Bay, the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), Spoken Word, Naxos, Audioville, Bookstolistento and Audible.com, which in 2006 generated $82.2 million USD in revenue through sales of downloadable audiobooks and other spoken-word content.[3]

Audiobooks on CD or cassette are typically more expensive than their hardback equivalents. Downloadable audiobooks tend to cost slightly less than hardbacks but more than their paperback equivalents. For this reason, market penetration of audiobooks is substantially lower than for their printed counterparts despite the high market penetration of the hardware (MP3 and WMA players) and despite the massive market penetration achieved by audio music products. Given the elasticity of demand for audiobooks, and the availability of cheaper alternatives, slow and steady growth in sales seems more likely than a mass market explosion. However, economics are on the side of downloadable audiobooks in the long run. They do not carry mass production costs, do not require storage of a large inventory, do not require physical packaging or transportation and do not face the problem of returns that add to the cost of printed books. It is possible that significant price reductions to customers, whilst eating into profit margins, will be offset by increased volumes of sales. This will increase absolute profits to the industry whilst bringing audiobooks to a wider public.

Audiobooks have been used to teach children to read, and increase reading comprehension. They are also useful for the blind. The National Library of Congress in the U.S. and the CNIB Library in Canada both provide free audiobook library services to the visually impaired; requested books are mailed out (at no cost) to clients.

About forty percent of all audiobook consumption occurs through public libraries, with the remainder served primarily through retail book stores. Library download programs are currently experiencing rapid growth (as of May 8, more than thirty-five public library systems offer free downloadable audio books). According to the National Endowment for the Arts' recent study, "Reading at Risk", audio book listening is one of very few "types" of reading that is increasing general literacy.

[edit] Self-help audio books

Audio books are also used for education. Self-help audio books range from public speaking to learning meditation. Their general goal however is always to develop one's skills to be more happy and/or successful in life. While some focus on a particular skill, others aim to shift the listener's life entirely. Many of these self help audio books can be purchased online.

[edit] Listening practices

Audiobooks are considered a valuable learning tool because of their format. Unlike with traditional books, one can learn from an audiobook while doing other tasks, although it should be noted that this can veer attention from the primary task. Such multitasking is feasible when doing mechanical tasks that do not require much thought and have only a very minor or no chance of an emergency arising. Such tasks include doing the laundry and exercising indoors, among others. They are also popular when driving, as an alternative to radio, and many people listen just to relax or as they drift off to sleep.

Strategies that maximize the benefits derived from listening to an audiobook include:

  • Replaying: Depending upon one's degree of attention and interest, it is often necessary to listen to segments of an audio book more than once to allow the material to be understood and retained satisfactorily. Replaying may be done immediately, and also after extended periods of time.
  • Learning: A person may listen to an audio book (usually an unabridged one) while following along in the actual book. This helps the person to learn words they may not learn correctly if they were to just read the book.
  • Notetaking

[edit] References

This article needs additional references or sources for verification.
Please help to improve this article by adding reliable references.

Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.
This article has been tagged since May 2007.
  1. ^ Audio Publishers Association Fact Sheet (also includes some historical perspective in the 1950s by Marianne Roney)
  2. ^ Audiopub.org statistics on audiobook sales
  3. ^ Audible Inc. 2006 Earnings Release

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audiobook"
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