Audiobooks at the Millennium
Trudi M. Rosenblum -- 1/3/00
Industry faces issues of new technology, multiple formats, need for increased retail space
The new year is a time to reflect on the past and look forward to the future. At the dawn of a new century, PW asked audiobook veterans to talk about the biggest issues and challenges facing the industry in the coming years. Topping the list: new opportunities created by the Internet and by download technology; the need for standardized packaging; and the problem of multiple formats of new titles (abridged, unabridged, CD) squeezing out backlist at retail.
Jenny Frost, president of Random House Audio Group and Random House Diversified Publishing: "With our current brick-and-mortar customers, the primary issue that we need to work to resolve is retail space. The plurification of multiple formats, which has fueled tremendous growth in our business in the last two years, has exacerbated the problem of frontlist pushing backlist off shelves. When there are three to five formats of any new title, the retailer has to ask, 'Where do I put backlist? Or do I forego backlist entirely?' We need to work to solve that, because for retailers to remain competitive and alive, they need to be able to offer choice in both frontlist and backlist.
"Looking to the future, the key opportunity is digitization and downloading. This offers tremendous opportunity to all of our customers, not just those who are Internet-based. It offers tremendous opportunity to our authors as well, because as we face the problem of space in the bricks-and-mortar environment, downloading allows us to offer all our titles to all our customers at all times. It also offers a level of mobility for what has always been a mobile product. We need to be sure that we move into this new world carefully and thoughtfully. To me, it's an even greater opportunity than the print world has with on-demand and e-books, because we know that most of our consumers are already consuming on the go."
Seth Gershel, senior v-p, Simon & Schuster Audio: "The challenge is, as always, more consumer awareness, and the best way to get it is still more retail presence. Once again, the APA numbers confirm that if you use audiobooks, you use them regularly. Surveys show that each user listens to an average of 13 audiobooks per year. We still haven't reached everyone who could be listening, but certainly more than before. The biggest long-term issue is downloading: explaining to our authors the benefits, and making sure we properly protect the authors. We can't rush headlong into the fray. Another challenge is keeping a reasonable retail price, no matter what medium we use, for what is turning out to be longer and longer programs. The consumer wants longer programs and is getting them, but we're not multiplying retail price as much as the cost of production is growing."
Paul Rush, APA president and owner of the Earful of Books chain: "First, the changes that are occurring in the publishing industry -- acquisitions, mergers and consolidations -- will present their own share of challenges. Second, we will have major technological changes that we shouldn't be fearful of, but that we should embrace. Third is the real opportunity: as we enter the millennium, people's lifestyles will become even more receptive to audio information. As people get busier and busier, we have a greater opportunity to give people information that fits their lifestyle. Our challenge is how to expand the industry to recognize that and take advantage of it."
Carrie Kania, associate publisher, Harper Audio: "Audiobooks will definitely continue to grow in the new millennium. With more titles being published unabridged and more titles becoming available on CD, there's a whole new audience for audiobook publishers to reach. In audio, there are still new roads to be explored, particularly in backlist. There are so many titles that were published 10 or 15 years ago, or even longer, that we can go back and revisit. For example, every year around the holidays, we re-promote A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas, which was published back in 1952. This is a great example of how audiobooks, even titles that are nearly 50 years old, can have new life year after year."
Eileen Hutton, v-p of editorial for Brilliance Corp. and APA board member: "One of the greatest challenges facing the industry is the lack of dialogue with the automobile manufacturers. We need a focused lobbying effort aimed at letting the decision-makers know that their customers want to listen to audiobooks as they drive. Currently, car makers are using statistics provided by the music industry, which has all but abandoned the cassette player."
Judy McGuinn, outgoing director of Time Warner Audiobooks and current APA board member: "The audiobook industry faces several significant challenges. One is the obvious challenge of keeping pace with new technological advances. We have the opportunity to market audiobooks online and to distribute them through downloads, and we continue to focus on the quality of sound in Internet transmissions and on copyright protection. Recently, the usefulness of audio sound bites to promote books and even the possibility of audio components in e-books demonstrate that audio will be important in the evolving publishing industry. Less obvious is the continuing need to get resellers -- and even publishers -- to recognize audio as a significant potential revenue stream and source of new customers. Audiobooks appeal to readers, but they also appeal to non-readers; focused marketing to that potential customer base would grow the audio industry and could mean significant incremental 'book' sales."
Don Katz, chairman and founder, Audible Inc.: "The audiobook marketplace is rich with product value and yet is a classically 'under-penetrated' market. Only 8% of the population enters a bookstore in a year and has ever had the chance of finding an audiobook. Meanwhile, 100 million Americans turn on the radio every day. The key to exposing even more listeners to the literate performances that are audiobooks is distribution -- from truck stops to grocery store check-out counters, to cereal boxes, to the Web."
Mike Herrick, CFO, MediaBay Inc.: "It's very important to have more of what Stephen King and Tom Wolfe have done: audio-only titles that give the audio industry something that no one else has. I hope that more authors continue to see the importance of audio and do audio-only projects."
Grady Hesters, CEO of Audio Partners Publishing Corp.: "The current challenge is determining how to maximize the benefit for everyone from Internet downloading. How will delivery systems be organized and how will authors, publishers, technology providers and resellers participate? Beyond that, how important will this market really be?
"A second category of concern is the maturing of delivery systems other than downloading. Everything from packaging to media, whether it's cassette, CD or something else, to how you label cassettes, to what the customary introductions are: do you say 'Side A' or 'Side one'? Do you say it's the end of the side, or not? Part of that challenge is presenting the consumer with a more consistent product that can become more comfortable and familiar. If we move to CDs, what techniques are we going to use to make it easier for people to handle them? I'm concerned that every publisher may do it differently, for example using different tracks for chapter breaks, etc. As an industry, it's to our benefit to deliver a product with more consistent characteristics.
"We're still waiting for the audio publisher who can create a more unique, original audio product that will enhance and expand the market. We need to become more than book-based. And on the business level, we are going to be challenged to accommodate consolidation. Individual publishers who have a larger percentage of the market challenge not only their competitors, but also the marketplace. That applies both on the reseller and publisher level."
Richard Simtob, co-founder, Talking Book World chain: "The big issues will be the switch over to DVD and low level of customer awareness of product even after all the promotion each year. Handselling will need to grow to build this industry from the bottom up. Current trends are better quality audiobooks, better readers, quicker release dates. Future trends are wider availability of product through more retailers and through the Internet."
Ron Prowell, CFO of Books on Tape and APA treasurer: "The biggest challenge for publishers in 2000 is to satisfy the growing demand for spoken word. The APA has made tremendous gains in creating consumer awareness of audiobooks. However, the audiobook industry publishes only a relatively small portion of the total content available in print. We must let free markets work and broaden the availability of content in as many channels as possible if we are to satisfy the demand of the consumer and make audiobooks a staple in the reading diet of Americans."
Jimmy Belson, owner, Jimmy B's Audiobooks retail store and Audiobooks. com Web site: "I have a specific concern: many publishers put mini-catalogues in their audiobooks that weigh half an ounce. Simon & Schuster, Random House and Brilliance all do a lot of direct mail-order business. If you buy a hardcover book, you never get these kind of popout flyers telling you to order directly. Much of the reason for the failure of growth of audio at retail is that the publishers have never pushed it -- they've pushed sales by their own forces. Right now, in 'O' Is for Outlaw, Random House offers a free subscription to Audiofile magazine, which is loaded with 800 numbers and Internet sites to buy audio, so I don't want to give it to my customers. This is a sensitive issue for me. As consumers become more savvy with 800 numbers and Internet sites. I have to ask: Is there support for what we're doing at retail?"
Lori Zarahn, audio buyer, Barnes & Noble: "There's still a misperception that audiobooks have somebody droning on a tape, when in fact they are performances in and of themselves. They are another way of experiencing a book. The audio industry has to get over that stigma. Also, we have to expand the audience. We have a definite, defined audience, but there's no outreach to younger, literary people who would probably find a lot of audio fascinating."
Larry Mallach, audio buyer, Borders: "There are quite a few issues that I'd love to see addressed. I'd like to see some similar packaging, so when we display, we don't have to deal with some titles being oversized and some having Norelco boxes and some not. If audiobooks had more consistent packaging, they would be easier to display, and easier for consumers. Also, I don't think there's a consistent price schedule. You can get a 20-disc unabridged Stephen King for $89.95 or a six-disc Jan Karon for $59.98. It would be great if the customer could go into the store knowing, 'If I buy a frontlist four-cassette abridgement, it costs $24.95.' No one seems to have come up with something that would standardize pricing.
"As for where the industry is going, I think it's getting bigger and becoming more of a valid selling product. Before, it wasn't really given its due. Now publishers, big and small are stepping up to get titles and put things out. The selection is a lot better. Right now the CD format is starting to come into its own, so it will be interesting to see what happens. Will there be a tendency to do all CD, or will tape still be out there? Are we going to get rid of abridgements altogether, or will we still have multiple formats? Right now, when you're purchasing frontlist, there's three or four formats, and that's just too much to really give it the focus that you'd want to. I'd love to see publishers commit to putting titles on just unabridged cassette and abridged CD, for example -- something where I can put all my eggs into one basket. It d sn't help me as a retailer, or the customer coming in, when there are four formats of one title on shelf. If they could slim down the number of formats, I could offer more title selection."
Frank Johnson, president, Audio Diversions: "Y2K will see a great synthesis: segmentation will give way to consolidation. Publishers will publish it all, marketers will market it all and manufacturers will cover it all, and that will make it easier on the consumer. Whatever formats he chooses will play on whatever equipment he has. Unabridgers have started to sell abridged. Publishers of abridged material are now offering unabridged of the same titles. Retailers of audio also rent. The lines between resellers and publishers, once sharply drawn, will gradually disappear, as will the different methods of distribution. The streaming technologies now represented by Audible, Real Audio and MP3 will become dominant as an alternative to the need to maintain vast inventories of ever-broader catalogues. Suppliers of packaging, media and graphics will see their worlds turned upside down as customers download to their own media from computers at home or from vending machines on the corner. We are going to see more major corporate consolidation within the industry as bean counters and marketers realize that these enormous changes in the various parts of our industry are really making us more alike, not more different. The whole communications thing is coming together in a big glob -- publishing, film, broadcast, computing and all the digital fallout from that, TV, radio, video, etc."
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