Just a few years ago, you couldn’t imagine reading an ebook. After all, your computer was the channel, and many of us don’t want to read a novel on it after we finish a day of work at the desktop. But with ereaders taking the world by storm, it’s no shock that ebook sales are up 159% in a single quarter. Do I need to say what this does to the print market?

The same is happening to the digital audiobook market. While physical audiobook sales were down 11.8% this month (who wants stacks of cds of books they’ll only listen to once?), digital audiobook sales are up 9% at $20.2 million. That’s the reason we’re in the industry we’re in. We know that the consumption of media is shifting and providing a ton of opportunities right now.

$20.2 million in digital audiobooks is just the tip of the iceberg.  There is a reason Amazon bought audible.com and Audible recently launched acx.com: they can’t keep up with demand.  It is extremely difficult for them to attempt to vertically integrate, so they are teaming with Amazon to create a marketplace.  Smart move.

We expect to see more of this partnering and print and physical audiobooks wising up and working with those (of us) who are in the digital space.