The Remarkable Rise of the Audiobook

This article provides a brief account of the rise of audiobooks, from the early uses of audiobooks to make books available to the visually impaired, to the rise of Audible and the recent surge in audiobooks. It shows how the strong growth of audiobook output and sales since 2011 has been linked to a clear shift in formats: whereas CDs had been the dominant medium for audiobooks between 2003 and 2010, digital downloads became increasingly important from 2011 onwards. By 2017, digital downloads accounted for nearly 90 per cent of audiobook sales.