In this episode of the Christian Publishing Show, Thomas Umstattd shares a special podcast version of the talk he gave at the 2019 ECPA Leadership Summit, an industry event where the leaders of Christian publishing houses gather to talk about trends and the future of the industry.

Thomas was asked to talk about the trends regarding audiobooks and podcasts. No recordings of the event are made so this is a special encore session of the talk.

There is no transcript but we do have links to the recommended gear, as well as the statistics that were passed out as a handout.

Recommended Gear

• Samson Q2U Microphone (Affiliate Link)
• Audio-Technica ATH-M20x Professional Studio Monitor Headphones (Affiliate Link)
• Neewer Adjustable Microphone Stand (Affiliate Link)
• Amazon Echo Dot (Affiliate Link)

Many of the above links are affiliate links. Also, the prices often fluctuate around the price listed.

Podcast Statistics

Podcast listeners are:

• affluent. 45% of monthly podcast listeners have a household income of over $75K – vs 35% for the US population.
• educated. 27% of US podcast listeners have a 4-year college degree – vs 19% for the US population.
• influential. 94% of podcast listeners are active on social media – vs 81% for the US population.

Audiobook Statistics

• Smart speakers are growing in popularity for audiobook listening. 24% of audiobook listeners say they have listened on a smart speaker.
• Millennials love audiobooks. Nearly half (48%) of frequent audiobook listeners are under 35.
• Podcast listeners are audiobook super readers. Listeners of both podcasts and audiobooks listened to twice as many audiobooks as non-podcast consumers.
• Fiction is more popular than non-fiction in audiobooks. 70.6% of audiobook sales are fiction.
• Digital audiobooks have replaced CDs as the dominant format. Only 5.8% of audiobook unit sales were on CD in 2017, down from 27.8% in 2013.

Source: Audiobook Publishers Association

Source: Audiobook Publishers Association

Source: Audiobook Publishers Association

Sources:

• https://www.edisonresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Infinite-Dial-2019-PDF-1.pdf
• http://www.edisonresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Edison-Research-Podcast-Consumer-2019.pdf
• https://www.statista.com
• https://blog.pacific-content.com/the-most-crowded-categories-in-apple-podcasts-7123447660cf
• https://www.audiopub.org/uploads/pdf/APA-FACT-SHEET-2018.pdf
• https://www.audiopub.org