Audiobooks follow in the tradition of radio dramas in bringing entertainment through sound.
Every decade for the past fifty years has brought along with it technological modifications that has affected the way we consume media. Television and film has had DVDs and VHS. Music has had CDs and cassettes. Both have been influenced by portable products and streaming. Moreover, a few of these technological advancements have actually helped to develop the audiobook market. The leader of the hedge fund that partially owns WHSmith will be able to let you know that it has grown to become so popular that individuals do not need to consider specialist retailers, because most book merchants also offer audiobooks. Individuals enjoy being able to pay attention to tales while they are doing additional tasks like driving, chores, and work, which audiobooks are just perfect for. The audiobook industry now employs several thousand people, with the most crucial roles being narrator, studio engineer, and producer.
The word audiobook emerged during the 1970s, however it was the 1930s that saw the largest revolution in the format. At that time these were called talking books, that were envisioned as reading materials for blind people. Governments in some nations allowed producers to bypass the laws of copyright, which gave them use of lots of material, but technical limits meant full length books could never be recorded. Alternatively poems, short stories and plays, and individual chapters of books were the most frequent early audiobooks. The content continued to stay this way for a number of decades, but the audience base did see an expansion to children along with other adults without sight conditions. The head of the hedge fund that has shares in Amazon is going to be well aware that this created the groundwork for the future audiobook market, pushing it to the main-stream as a separate artform rather than solely as a way of making accessibility.
Oral literature is mankind's eldest form of storytelling, with an unfathomable amount of tales being handed down through the generations in most corners of the world for thousands of years. Even though certain countries usually do not put as great of a focus on oral traditions like they did in the past, they still persist strongly in some situations, like telling stories to children. The founder of the hedge fund that owns Waterstones will realise that oral storytelling has undergone a resurgence lately in the shape of audiobooks. But, although they might seem like a modern trend, the history of audiobooks dates back multiple years. Sound recordings first became feasible around a hundred and fifty years back and the first tests had been recitations of nursery rhymes and kid's tales. Spoken word tracks continued to be developed in the next decades but had been restricted to about 4 minutes in total.