2014: A Year In Audiobooks

As we kick off a new year, PW asked audio publishers to share their reflections on successes and trends of 2014.

Trends

Several trends emerged or continued in 2014, with most publishers pointing to increased title output and better awareness of the audio category in general as key issues.

“The upswing of audio erotica continues, with self-published phenoms translated to audio for the first time and fans going wild,” observes Anthony Goff, v-p and publisher at Hachette Audio. “We’re seeing more emphasis on children’s audio in mainstream publications and throughout school/library systems, and movie tie-ins continue their success, as does lower-price audio.”

Chris Lynch, president and publisher at Simon & Schuster Audio, says, “The trend remains that everybody is producing more titles, and that’s true for us, too. Certainly the ability to produce audio at varying production levels allows us to make more titles available on audio that may not have been. We can now publish more titles profitably than ever. The market is growing and more people are coming to the format than ever before. That we can produce that many titles and find audiences for all of them speaks volumes.”

“Unique takes on the audio format always impress us and have become a great trend in the industry,” says Sean McManus, director of audio at HarperAudio, pointing to the slew of celebrity narrators taking part in Amy Poehler’s Yes Please Taking things further in a new direction, “We recorded Amy reading the last chapter live at the Upright Citizens Brigade comedy theater in Los Angeles,” McManus says. “Another trend that we love is the increased exposure for the author and narrator,” he continues. “In one instance, we held an event in Brooklyn for Wally Lamb’s We Are Water, in which Lamb introduced the audiobook and had each of the eight narrators read a part from the audiobook live. We also had a live event in Jersey City with [The Serpent of Venice author] Christopher Moore and his narrator, Euan Morton. Each live event brought in over 100 fans and was a huge hit. We hope to see this trend continue in the future.”

Penguin Random House Audio hit high notes with a particular genre in 2014. “Our fall season was full of books from amazing musicians,” senior v-p and publisher Amanda D’Acierno notes. “Neil Young, Herbie Hancock, and Jennifer Lopez all went into the studio to narrate their memoirs, Special Deluxe, Herbie Hancock: Possibilities, and True Love [respectively]. Music fans got even more backstage access with Fred Schruers’s biography of Billy Joel, and John Byrne Cook’s untold stories of Janis Joplin’s life on tour, On the Road with Janis Joplin.

Anne Fonteneau at Blackstone observes, “More than ever before, we saw 2014 mark the validation of audiobooks as a desirable format for consumers, right along with hardcovers and e-books. With that came a reshaping of the market as really vibrant and competitive—we’re seeing a huge increase in the number of audiobooks being published, and new distributors are coming to the table because the market is so much more robust. The market has really exploded and we’re excited to see what 2015 holds.”

Long Live the CD

Across the board, audio publishers reported solid numbers for CDs in 2014, even as their digital production and sales increased. “We are seeing terrific growth with digital sales, but our CD sales are remaining steady as well,” says Mary Beth Roche, president and publisher at Macmillan Audio. “In fact our CD sales are up slightly [in 2014].” McManus at HarperAudio concurs. “Physical CDs continue to impress us with their staying power in the marketplace. It’s a highlight of our 2014, and we expect it to continue while the audio format continues to grow.”

Penguin Random House continues to see “a growing demand for a digital product, fueled by more and more people coming to the audio format because downloads allow them to read in ways that complement their on-the-go lifestyle,” says D’Acierno. “We’ve received great feedback to our Try Audiobooks campaign from listeners who download audiobooks to keep them company while they knit, garden, cook, and exercise. However, there is still a customer for physical CD editions, and we’ll publish to meet that demand as long as it continues.”

Goff shared this statistic from Hachette: “Just about 45% of our sales from Q4 were still from physical audio product,” he says, “and that’s up a bit in 2014 over 2013, so we are still seeing the CD medium hold tight.”

For Lynch at S&S Audio, “At least 50% of our titles start out as digital-only at retail, but we might do a print-on-demand run later. We don’t want to alienate those who want and like the CD format. We are not cutting back on what we do on CD, but we are doing more titles overall,” he emphasizes. “The shelf space is limited, and the books they are tied to don’t have the print runs they used to, so it’s a surprise that CD continues to perform. We still ship 50,000 copies of a frontlist title, which is amazing.”

Top Titles

“Poehler’s Yes Please has done very well for us and was a natural fit for the audio format,” says McManus. He cites Natchez Burning, by Greg Isles, Think Like a Freak, by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt, and the new multicast recording of The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman, as other bestsellers.

At Hachette Audio, Goff reports that fall thrillers The Burning Room, by Michael Connelly, and The Escape, by David Baldacci, were two of its biggest bestsellers of 2014. He notes that first-time nonfiction author Amanda Palmer has been a “great success” toward the end of the year with The Art of Asking. Goff called it a “special” audiobook, featuring music from The Dresden Dolls, Palmer, Ben Folds, Walt Ribeiro, and Sxip Shirey, with an exclusive live recording of “Bigger on the Inside.” Palmer and Gaiman, her husband, promoted the title extensively during a November radio tour and to Palmer’s legions of fans on Twitter. The Silkworm, by Robert Galbraith (the pen name of J.K. Rowling), was one of the year’s biggest successes in CD and in digital formats, and the title got a boost when its predecessor, The Cuckoo’s Calling, won the prestigious Anthony Award at the Boucheron World Mystery Convention. Goff notes that James Patterson continues to be “the real powerhouse of our list throughout the year” and says the company is also “very excited” about its Grammy nominee in the best children’s album category, I Am Malala, by Nobel Prize–winner Malala Yousafzai.

Among the bestselling titles at Macmillan Audio are Killing Patton, by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard; What I Know for Sure, by Oprah Winfrey; Betrayed, by Lisa Scottoline; Be Careful What You Wish For, by Jeffrey Archer; The Long Way Home, by Louise Penny; Words of Radiance, by Brandon Sanderson, and The Andy Cohen Diaries, by Andy Cohen. “Billy Crystal’s Still Foolin’ ‘Em sold more copies this year than it did in its initial year of release,” says president and publisher Mary Beth Roche of the 2013 title. “It won the [APA’s] audiobook of the year award in June, and the resulting media attention prompted a whole new wave of sales that is continuing through the holiday season.”

According to D’Acierno, some of the bestselling titles across the various imprints at Penguin Random House Audio were 41, by George W. Bush, Lee Child’s Personal, The Heroes of Olympus, by Rick Riordan, The Giver, by Lois Lowry, Big Little Lies, by Liane Moriarty, and The Invention of Wings, by Sue Monk Kidd.

“Blackstone enjoyed a really diverse year,” says Anne Fonteneau, head of sales. “One of our most exciting projects was offering the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez for the first time in audio,” noting that 100 Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera were “especially well received.” The publisher will be releasing Spanish audiobooks of the titles during 2015. “It was also a great year for psychological and crime thrillers,” says Fonteneau. “The Good Girl, by Mary Kubica, and Cop Town, by Karin Slaughter, were the big hits of the summer and fall for us.” What If?, from the creator of xkcd.com, Randall Munroe, was a “smash” for nonfiction, according to Fonteneau. “And one of my personal favorites this year was Everything I Never Told You, by Celeste Ng,” said Fonteneau. “A gripping page-turner and a wonderful literary fiction release for us.”

Simon & Schuster Audio started the year off with Flash Boys, by Michael Lewis, which was “tremendous” for the company, says Lynch. Also reaching bestseller status were Mr. Mercedes, Rival, by Stephen King, Hard Choices, by Hillary Clinton, and All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr. “Audible named [Doerr] their number-one fiction title,” Lynch notes. “It started slow in April and has just kept building momentum.” Tony Robbins’s first new book in 20 years, Money: Master the Game, The Innovators, by Walter Isaacson, and As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of the Princes Bride, by Cary Elwes, which was Audible’s best nonfiction title of the year, all posted top numbers as well. “As You Wish is a great, unique audio experience, and the fact that it’s doing so well is nice to see,” Lynch adds.

Audio Bestsellers 2014

Source: Nielsen BookScan.