> It's just surprising that audiobook listeners haven't developed a distinct taste apart from book readers.
Sample size of 1, but: my taste in audiobooks does not perfectly overlap with my taste in dead-trees books. My audiobook library skews much more to the fiction end of things, while my dead-trees library contains more nonfiction. I also use audiobooks to re-read books I've already read.
I enjoy the performance aspect of the audiobooks in its own right. The narrator makes or breaks my experience of the book, to such an extent that I have returned Audible books that _I have already read in dead-trees form and knew I liked_ because the narration was bad. I also suspect some of my favorite audiobooks would have ended up in the "donate/throw out" pile if I'd read them first on paper.
Me too, more or less. Your sample size if one is probably right.
Yet... audiobooks' are still pretty much just books. There is no theatre-2-film difference between the mediums. It's more like hardbacks and soft covers.
It's not exactly main stream but there are groups like Graphic Audio doing great work that will probably lead down this road.
They do a full cast audiobook with sound effects, music, etc. and they tend to be altered slightly to work in the medeium - would not be surprised if the differences continue to grow.
Sample size of 1, but: my taste in audiobooks does not perfectly overlap with my taste in dead-trees books. My audiobook library skews much more to the fiction end of things, while my dead-trees library contains more nonfiction. I also use audiobooks to re-read books I've already read.
I enjoy the performance aspect of the audiobooks in its own right. The narrator makes or breaks my experience of the book, to such an extent that I have returned Audible books that _I have already read in dead-trees form and knew I liked_ because the narration was bad. I also suspect some of my favorite audiobooks would have ended up in the "donate/throw out" pile if I'd read them first on paper.