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In the 1990s, before the iPod was launched, Audible was selling a proprietary digital media player that held about two hours of audio downloaded from its online library. This growth has largely been driven by the rise of Audible, the Amazon-owned platform that dominates the digital audiobook market through its subscription streaming service, though there are other players, including Storytel, which operates largely in Scandinavian countries. In the US, audiobook downloads generate revenue of close to a billion dollars annually. In a climate where print and ebook sales are stagnant, the UK audiobook market rose to £69m in 2018, an increase of 43% on the previous year. In the two decades since Bryson recorded his first narration, the audiobook market has grown from a publishing industry side hustle into a huge global business. “You know what it’s like when you’re writing – you don’t think about anything, really, except trying to get words right to yourself on the page.” “Now I’ve probably worked with five or six producers,” he says, “and they’re all really kind, and they’re always very encouraging, but I can’t help feel that I should be better at this, that I should be able to pronounce the words in my own book.” Does he not realise by now that when he commits a word like glomerulonephritis to print, he will eventually have to record it? “You would think so, but no,” he says. “Fucking hell,” he says, under his breath.īryson’s audiobook experience goes back 20 years, when he was living in New Hampshire and the nearest recording studio was in the neighbouring state of Vermont. He backs up to the beginning of the sentence, as if preparing to charge at a thicket, but when he reaches the word it defeats him again. On the other side of the glass, Bryson’s producer follows the text on an iPad, adding cryptic marks to the margins with a stylus.īryson makes steady progress until he runs into the word glomerulonephritis, which he can’t get his tongue around. Seen through the window of the recording booth, Bryson’s face is largely obscured by the microphone in front of him, but his voice is clear and measured. T he author Bill Bryson is sitting before a lectern in Audible’s London headquarters, narrating his latest book, a disquisition on human biology called The Body: A Guide For Occupants.