A Swedish study looked at bestselling Swedish-language print and audiobooks between 2015 and 2019 and found that “Print bestsellers are longer, syntactically more complex and varied, and seem to focus more on depiction. Best-streaming audiobooks, by contrast, are shorter, more straightforwardly written, and appear to highlight plot and dialogue.” Sweden is the home of the popular digital subscription service Storytel; audiobook sales make up half the market in that country. The researchers suggest that authors will adjust their storytelling for audio consumption and that literature will transform as a result. (Indeed, there’s already guidance out there for authors on audio-first writing and storytelling.)
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
