The Guadalajara International Book Fair hosted its first forum dedicated exclusively to audiobooks this year, reflecting the format's increasing popularity and recent production surge in Spanish-language markets. The forum featured five panel discussions and keynote presentations by Audio Publishers Association (APA) executive director Michele Cobb, Audible country manager for Mexico Anasofía Sánchez, and Javier Celaya of Spain’s Dosdoce.
Panel discussions covered audio rights sales, catalog building strategies, and production challenges. One key topic was the use of regional Spanish accents to maintain authenticity in Latin American texts, contrasting with the "neutral" accent common in regional television.
Celaya detailed international trends in the audiobook space, identifying listeners under 30 as the format's biggest consumers, and citing their technology use and preference for streaming music, films, and series. He noted that audiobook adoption is a natural extension of these activities.
The most in-demand audiobooks mirror print bestsellers, Celaya said, emphasizing publishers' need to make print titles available in audio. He added that Latin American listeners favor biography, self help, and other nonfiction titles, including in the mental health space, while fiction leads sales in Spain.
Audible's Sánchez highlighted the opportunity in Spanish-language audiobook production. She noted that, while Spanish speakers number 486 million worldwide, only about 40,000 audiobook titles are available in Spanish, compared to hundreds of thousands for the 320 million English speakers.
In an interview with PW before the forum, the APA’s Cobb described audio as having been "the redheaded stepchild of publishing, and now, for more than a decade, audiobooks have been growing significantly, well outpacing print and e-books, and so now people are paying attention."
She continued: "I'm here to bring some attention to the fact that Spanish language is a growing piece of the industry and there are a lot of opportunities. In the English-language market, we have had double-digit growth every year for the past 11 years, and in 2023 it was only 9%. But that is in comparison to the pandemic years, when there was a huge surge in growth because people had fewer entertainment options and couldn't go out."
Cobb asserted that if publishers don't do their titles in audio, they are missing out. “We know that 15-20% of people who are listening to audiobooks do not read with their eyes," she added. "One of the things that is so big about nonfiction is having authors reading their own words, and it helps to grow the industry. Because when people have read one they are very likely to try something else because they have had a good experience. There is a book for every ear."
The 2025 Guadalajara International Book Fair will feature an expanded audiobooks forum, per Álvaro Ortiz, cofounder of Mexican audiobook publisher Audiolibre and a co-organizer of the event, including an expansion into workshops,
