Harry and Britney spearhead surge in audiobook listeners

Amazon-owned audiobook platform, Audible, has reported an increase in listening hours of memoir and pop culture content. Which blockbuster audiobooks of 2023 are behind the trend?

Prince Harry's memoir, which he narrated, was one of Audible's most popular celebrity memoirs of the year

Celebrity memoirs are driving a surge in audiobook listenership, according to new numbers from Amazon-owned audiobook platform Audible.

Over the past year, Audible Australia has seen a 19 per cent year-on-year increase in listening hours of memoir and pop culture content, boosted by high-profile celebrity memoirs including Prince Harry’s Spare and Britney Spears’ The Woman In Me.

The company is anticipating further growth as the business enters the summer reading season, with demand for audiobooks continuing to rise.

Poolside reading during summer and car trips are both amenable to the audiobook format, however flights offer particular promise for an uptick in listenership, Audible has found. Four in five (78 per cent) Australians are more likely to listen to an audiobook during a flight, according to a recent customer survey.

Some consumers are only just beginning to think about listening to audiobooks in the air; 29 per cent of Australians say it’s “the new way to be entertained while flying”. Most Australians just want to lose themselves in a good story during flights, 61 per cent said.

A new marketing campaign accompanies the peak summer reading season too, which taps into both the popularity of celebrity memoirs and travel.

The campaign is called Fly Celeb Class and curates audiobook recommendations based on popular flight paths. Paris Hilton’s memoir is the pick from New York to Paris, while Audible suggests Barbra Streisand’s lengthier story as the ideal travel companion from Sydney to London.

Prince Harry’s memoir Spare, which he also narrated, drove a massive boost in the audiobook category. Within the first week of its launch in January, Spare’s publisher Penguin reported almost 50 per cent of first week sales in audio, a number that was significantly above average.

The intimacy of audio storytelling is resonating with listeners. According to Audible’s survey, travellers love listening to audiobooks, particularly if they are narrated by the author.

Nearly half of respondents said author-narrated audiobooks feel as though the author is “right next to them”.

Speaking exclusively to The Growth Agenda, Audible Australia’s country manager Ben Rolleston said: “[Spare] was a huge awareness driver for the category and really solidified the strength of memoirs and biographies in audio, when the author is narrating the story.

“It feels incredibly personal and different to a physical copy. In many ways Spare helped establish or solidify the category for a broader set of people.”

Following Spare, which topped the list of Audible’s celebrity memoir audiobook titles by sales in 2023, were: The Woman in Me by Britney Spears; Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry; Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins; and I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy.

Romance and fiction genres have also seen a “steady lift”, Mr Rolleston said, while wellness and personal development books, including James Clear’s popular title Atomic Habits, continue to perform well post-Covid.

Audiobook growth is proliferating more broadly: globally, audiobook editions of Harry Potter have clocked one billion listening hours on Audible.

Despite tightened consumer spending, people are still buying books and audiobooks, Mr ­Rolleston said.

Since Audible launched into the Australian market almost a decade ago, Mr Rolleston said the business had seen growth in both its member base and listening time every year.

In addition to books and stories that consumers are eager to listen to, Mr Rolleston thinks that other trends are supporting Audible’s growth.

“There’s some screen fatigue as well, which I think is a great appeal of Audible,” he said.

“It serves a different type of experience (for) many people who are wishing to hop off screens during this downtime to relax and refresh.”

Audible is 25 years old and originated in the US, however, as the business approaches a decade in the Australian market, Mr Rolleston said it would “continue to get the best global content” and further cement its local roots.

To date, the business has commissioned more than 100 local Australian Audible Originals (or audiobooks and podcasts) and has invested in developing narrators locally, knowing that three quarters of Australians (76 per cent) revealed the importance of an appealing and engaging narrator when deciding what audio content to listen to.

The audiobook market is “evolving rapidly”, Mr Rolleston said of the industry that has given rise to a growing number of creative roles such as voice acting for narration. Audiobooks are also helping authors reach new audiences, which he expects will continue.

“I think we’ll see a growing breadth of demographics that are serviced in terms of audiobooks … and a growing understanding of the portability and the flexibility and the personal nature of ­audiobooks.

“Storytelling is a universal ­experience, and this is the modern version of storytelling. We’ll continue to see that expand,” Mr ­Rolleston said.