In one form or another, audiobooks have been with us since the 1930s. But it was only in the mid 1980s that the medium entered the mainstream. As Walkmans and car stereo cassette players became ubiquitous, large publishers responded to growing consumer demand by starting their own audio divisions, and books on audio cassette began to appear in bookstores.
Now audiobook technology is transitioning yet again into downloadable digital formats that can be listened to at your computer, transferred to a portable audio player, or burned to a CD. Consumers are demanding ways to multi-task in our hectic world and today's audiobooks allow readers to do that, at the same time preserving the oral tradition of storytelling that J.P. Harrington pursued many years ago.
The Audio Publishers Association
(APA) released the results of the 2009 APA Sales Survey, conducted to evaluate trends
and measure the growth of the audiobook industry. The independent research firm,
LewisClarkBoone Market Intelligence, surveyed audiobook publishers and analyzed
consumer sales data from 2008, comparing current statistics against the previous year’s
findings. The results show the audio industry experienced only a slight drop in sales in
2008, comparable to those of the trade book industry.

For the first time, the APA is releasing the measure of publishers’ revenues, a metric that
other publishing industry trade associations use. Revenue reported by 30 member
companies is $331 million, down only 6.7% from last year. The APA estimates that the
total size of the audiobook industry, based on the dollars spent by consumers and
libraries, is close to $1 billion. « less