Watch out, multitaskers: a publisher campaign is targeting people whose hobbies make them a good fit for audiobooks. According to the New York Times, the website TryAudiobooks.com has been designed with such people in mind and even includes a “personal audiobook assistant” to recommend titles for runners, crafters, road trippers, business travelers, and techies. The piece is full of rich statistics about audiobook reading habits and recent sales figures (for many years, the lack of reliable data has bedeviled those of us writing about the audiobook market). The President of the Audiobook Publishers Association ends the piece on a provocative note by suggesting that audiobooks may no longer be “the stepchild of print.”
The piece appears in the “Advertising” rather than the “Books” section of the NYTimes. You can read Andrew Adam Newman’s article here: “Expanding the Market for Audiobooks Beyond Consumers.”
Audiobook History 