What are audiobooks

A. It's kind of a contradiction in terms, but they are 'books' that you listen to. A more accurate term is spoken word publications, in that, while a lot of the recordings issued are adaptations of books, an equally large number are plays, old radio shows and other material not originally published in written form.

�

Q. How long have they been around
A. Certainly since the 1950s, when LPs of works such as the plays of Shakespeare and abridged film soundtracks were commercially available. However, these constituted a very small percentage of the record market, and they were not marketed as 'books'. Spoken word publishing began to grow in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the combination of the audio cassette and the invention of the Walkman, as well as the fact that from this time all new cars were fitted with cassette players meant that people could listen to recordings on the move.

�

The real explosion has been in the last ten years, with the output of spoken word publishers increasing year on year. Audiobooks for the visually impaired have always been around. However, these are aimed at a specialist market and are outside the remit of 'commercial' publishers, being handled, for the most part, by organisations who deal with large-print and Braille books.

�

Q. What kinds of things are published
A. The bulk of material published falls in to two categories: bestsellers and well-loved classics adapted from books; and tapes of old radio shows, often from the BBC archives. All pretty mainstream, with blockbusters in the Frederick Forsyth mould or, at the quirkier end, writers such as Bill Bryson making up the bulk of the output.

�

However, there is a move to produce more challenging stuff by outfits such as King Mob - whose list includes work by the likes of Nick Cave, Ken Campbell, Michael Moorcock, Iain Sinclair and Malcolm X - who see spoken word publishing as a new medium, existing independently of either music or traditional book publishing.

�

Q. Who produces audiobooks
A. All the big book publishers and some companies more traditionally associated with music, such as the classical music label Naxos. Spoken word departments tend to be small in relation to the size of firms as the market has not yet reached its full potential, and the financial returns are relatively low - even by book publishing standards.

�

Q. Who listens to them
A. Middle aged men in their cars are the biggest market, which explains the less than cutting-edge nature of the books on offer. It could be argued that if a greater diversity of material were available, then the audience demography might change, but it will take a brave publisher with an imaginative marketing strategy and large budget to engineer this.

�

Q. Who sells them
A. Bigger traditional bookshops - particularly the chains - on-line booksellers and some record shops all have sections stocking audio books. The biggest outlet in the UK is the Talking Bookshop in Wigmore Street, London, which only sells audiobooks.

�

Q. What's the future
A. At the present time audiobooks are for the most part only produced in cassette form as bookshops have been unwilling thus far to sell CDs and it is only recently that cars have been rolling out of the factories with CD players, rather than cassette players installed.

�

This will change, however, and it may be that the availability of spoken word material on CD and other media will influence the works on offer and the people who are likely to listen to it. It is very likely that the range of spoken word material will widen and the size of the market will certainly continue to grow, as more people feel that they don't have time to sit down and read. It's better than not 'reading' at all, but it will be someone else's interpretation and you will have to get used to hearing the actor Martin Jarvis's voice all the time, as he has been the hot voice in the British audiobook world for some years and seems to be in almost everything.

�

The Spoken Word Publishing Association and the Audio Publishers' Association are organisations which look after the interests of spoken word publishers in the UK and USA. Their websites are worth a look if you want to find out more

http://www.audiopub.org/
http://www.swpa.org.uk/

�

Take a look at http://genres.artistdirect.com/spokenword.html to get an idea of the range of spoken word items on offer, particularly the less mainstream stuff.

�

For more on Arts & Literature click here

�

By Simon Smith