When it comes to audiobooks, most people find Amazon’s Audible to be one of the most trustworthy and diverse platforms of all. Its popularity has helped it to get a 63.4% of the U.S. market share in the audiobook publishing category as of 2022. Not just that, Audible was responsible for $1.01 billion of the $1.6 billion figure generated by the U.S. Audiobook publishing as of 2021.
Founded by Don Katz, Audible has certainly transformed the way people read books. The American audiobooks/podcast service has exclusively introduced varieties for readers, providing the classics and new releases in the audio format. This has certainly reintroduced the art of storytelling in the literary world.
As per Audible’s official website, Katz came up with the concept of Audible back in 1995 while he was jogging around Riverside Park in Manhattan with a cassette player on. Apparently, he liked the idea of “listening to books while on the go” and downloadable digital files.
Katz’s interest in technology, along with his belief in audio content, helped Audible to thrive significantly. He went on to explore more technologies, like digital signal processors and compact memory devices, to offer a seamless experience to the readers.
As per the AspenTimes, Katz and his team took care of relevant advancements that contributed to Audible’s success. This includes their digital audio player, downloading mechanisms, and security protocols for the authors. They majorly focused on their service’s improvement, which eventually helped them survive the stock market bubble, the dot-com boom in the late ’90s.
Katz was also inspired by the well-known writer Ralph Ellison, who’s renowned for his novel Invisible Man. When Katz was a student at NYU, Ellison was named the Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities. Eventually, he took a course with Ellison called American Vernacular which helped him understand more about American literature.
“I understood that American literature at its best was a function of how we spoke, how we told stories around campfires — how we bragged, consoled, lamented, and felt,” he said, as per Tech Crunch. “I studied literature with Ralph as much as I read his work and talked about writing… Audible is testament, in many ways, to what I learned from him.”
With Audible, Katz ensures a personalized experience to the readers. “We all know the primal pleasures of childhood when people read to you. I felt that if we could evoke the sense that everyone who listened will think it’s just for you … it would open up all these opportunities,” he said, as per AspenTimes. His dedication and commitment towards Audible resulted in record sales in the UK and other countries.
Navkiran Dhaliwal is a seasoned content writer with 10+ years of experience. When she's not writing, she can be found cooking up a storm or spending time with her dog, Rain.