Audiobooks, or ‘talking books’, have traditionally received rather a bad rap. Commonly sneered at as regular books’ bastard little brothers, they have historically been sidelined as intended only for the visual impaired, blind, elderly or ill. A kind of snobbery has always plagued audiobooks, which have been perceived over the years as a bit ‘easy’ or an inferior/ less intellectual way of accessing books. One reason for this is that the majority of audiobooks are abridged – a necessary evil when a typical 400-page book can easily span 15+ CDs and cost upwards of £30. Literary heavyweight P. D. James refuses any abridgements of her work and Graham Greene always insisted on ‘complete’ reproductions of his texts, although amusingly, the movies of Our Man In Havana and The Third Man were both unsurprisingly cut down for the screen with no complaints.
Another reason for sniffiness over audiobooks is that there seems to exist a notion – especially among the ‘learned’ – that for a book to be worth its salt it has to be slogged over – a kind of odd achievement that perhaps provides a reader with the conviction that they have worked as hard in reading as the author did in writing their particular oeuvre; a shared effort which is perceived to be missing from spoken word productions.
But times they are ever changing, and with digitalisation and the wonder of downloadable MP3s, more people, especially young people, are getting into audiobooks through sites like audible.co.uk, which proved marketable enough to have been acquired by Amazon in 2008. With most audiobooks handily ‘bookmarked’ every 5 minutes or so a listener can navigate one easily on an ipod and more and more people are removing themselves from their respective closets and confessing to being audiophiles. The likes of Stephen Fry (the voice of the Harry Potter audiobooks) and photographer Rankin have recently extolled spoken word’s values and Time Out magazine have recently re-introduced monthly audio reviews upon realising that their target young, trendy demographic are actually increasingly interested in the newest audio releases. As production costs are cut down significantly with digital audiobooks, more unabridged, complete books can be offered online so listeners can chose which they prefer, abridged or unabridged, at little extra cost.
Audiobooks have also been subject to scrutiny in recent months because they are currently VATable at a higher rate (15%), as opposed to books which are zero rated and no VAT is charged to the consumer (meaning a cheaper end product). On Thurs 19 March, Bookbrunch reported:
“ECOFIN, the EU’s Economic and Financial Affairs Council, has agreed to reduce VAT on audiobooks from 15% to 5%”.
This means that within the next few years audiobook publishers may be able to charge significantly less for both their digital and physical audiobooks, which inevitably would mean that more people could access and afford them.
In a country like Wales, with such a strong tradition of aural storytelling and a language founded in poetry and the wonder of sounds, audiobooks are growing in popularity as they are in the rest of the UK. Log on to audible.co.uk to see what’s new or nip into your nearest bookshop and listen up for a new and vibrant literary experience.