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Traditional publishers missing out on romance and sci-fi sales
Publishers are missing out on audiobook listeners who want sci-fi and romance titles, statistics on sales show.
Paul Abbassi from Bookstat told FutureBook Live that traditional publishers were capturing only 57% of unit sales in romance audiobooks, and just half the sales for horror and fantasy titles.
Harry Potter audiobooks also currently make up 2% of all sales in the sector he told a session on “Generation Headphone”.
Exclusive research for the conference by Lee Langford from Harris Interactive also showed 15% of UK book consumers have listened to an audiobook in the past 12 months. Of those who listened to an audiobook, 62% also read e-books, far higher than the 40% seen in the general population.
Langford said the statistics, compiled from a survey last month of more than 2,000 book readers and listeners, confirmed audiobooks are skewed to men and younger adults. But he said household income and number of children in the home were also a factor in how likely people were to consume audio.
He explained: “The most influential variable that we came across was household income and obviously this implies some consumers may be steering clear of audiobooks right now due to costs.”
Talking about future consumers, of audiobooks, he said: “For now it's more of the same. So men are more likely than women and younger consumers are four times more likely than their older counterparts to try audiobooks in the future.”
On average, listeners consumed around four audiobooks per annum, showing how, despite the market growing, it was still a moderate proportion of overall book consumption.
The most popular genres in audio were crime and thrillers – particularly for older listeners, and sci-fi and fantasy – the top genre for men and younger consumers.
Respondents said they were most likely to listen when relaxing at home, followed by when cooking a meal (especially among older people), commuting by public transport and a surprisingly large section of 18-34-year-olds liked to listen while working.
