Audible Shares the Latest Numbers Behind the Audio Boom at London Book Fair

This past week, Audible returned to the London Book Fair to share insights into and celebrate the tremendous global rise in audio listening with publishing leaders from across the industry. Throughout the fair, Audible leaders joined industry experts on a range of panel discussions to share exciting news and innovations in the audio space.

Audible’s Chief Content Officer Rachel Ghiazza discussed the forces driving audio’s rapid and enduring growth in the Main Stage panel “Audio Boom: Expanding the Audio Category”, emphasizing the scale of the opportunity ahead and the need to create more audio content to close the gap between titles available in print and those in audio. Alongside Amanda D'Acierno, President, Penguin Random House Audio, Global, and Chantal Restivo-Alessi, Chief Digital Officer and CEO, International Foreign Language, HarperCollins, Ghiazza dug into the genres fueling the massive demand for audio, including a 50% jump for the romance genre in Audible member listening time over the last 18 months. More broadly, Audible’s top three genres worldwide in terms of listening time are sci-fi and fantasy, mystery and thriller, and fiction. Sci-fi represents another big increase in listening time, with a jump of over 20% over the last 18 months, while kids’ content saw a 22% increase in member listening engagement in 2024. Taking an even more holistic view, Audible’s member base has grown globally by nearly 800% over the last ten years, a signal that customers are becoming increasingly habituated to listening.

Lee Jarit, Global Head of Publisher and Partner Relations, emphasized the importance of independent authors to engaging listeners and growing the audiobook category: titles published on Audible’s Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX) make up more than 31 percent of Audible’s catalog, and hours spent listening to ACX titles last year increased by 40 percent. He also spoke to the variety of ways Audible is looking to bring more titles to life through AI, including a voice replication beta that allows ACX narrators to create and monetize replicas of their own voices so they can maximize earning potential.

On hand with Lee was best-selling fantasy author Michael Miller of the Songs of Chaos series, who shared ACX’s impact on his success and made the case for other creators to prioritize audio. “Audio is my biggest-earning format and I consider it the most important part of my catalog,” he said. Miller, a UK-based author, also cited the fact that ACX opens him up to listeners all over the world, with around the vast majority of his sales coming from the U.S.

Audible continues to experiment with format, pushing the boundaries of what audio storytelling can be. On a discussion alongside Amy Cudden, Actor and Joint-Head of Screen, Audio and Innovation, LAMDA, and Georgina Cutler-Ross, Audio Sales Director, Hachette UK, Audible Head of Regional Content for Europe Aurelie de Troyer spoke about how listeners are increasingly embracing multi-cast productions, including Audible Originals such as last year’s George Orwell's 1984, starring Andrew Garfield and Cynthia Erivo, as well as the eagerly anticipated full-cast audio productions of the original Harry Potter stories.

As always, we loved celebrating the momentum and breakthroughs in audio storytelling with our colleagues across the industry, including the agents, press and publishing organizations who joined us in our stand to toast to the beginning of the fair. Until next year, London!