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Comment by torben-friis | Hacker News Reader

I already commented it on reddit, but I was very surprised by the fact (mentioned in passing) that 75% of pre-buyers for Sanderson's last book were audiobooks.

For each person reading the book there are 3 people hearing it. Those are wild numbers for me.

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It's worth noting that the narrator - Michael Kramer - is exceptional. One of the characters in this particular series is known for his ability with accents, so listening to the audiobook with a good narrator is an extra amount of fun.

I've read most of Sanderson's books in print, but for this one I also bought the audiobook specifically for that kind of narration.

The other narrator commonly used Kate Reading is also exceptional and is Michaels wife.

Not surprised Kate Reading narrates audiobooks.

I know I’m in the minority but I stopped reading Sanderson because I dislike Kramer so much. His inflection makes everything sound so corny.

GraphicAudio provides an alternative audio production for most of them.

Dumb question: is “reading” also used as a verb for audiobooks? (English is my second language).

Yes. It's not without controversy, but it's widely accepted.

No, in the dictionary sense, being told a story is not the same as reading. As with many words these days, certain liberties are taken.

It didn’t used to be, but now it is quite common. I think that, as listening to audiobooks has become more and more popular (as per this thread), folks have tired of saying “listened to the audiobook of” and are switching to just “read”. Pretty standard linguistic evolution following subject frequency.

Audiobook listeners ;) get really defensive about it but think about it this way: when you teach a child how to read, what kind of image pops in your head? Are they listening to mp3s??

In most contexts that's what I use. In contexts where it can be misleading I'll be more specific.

Technically, no. But sometimes it is used for that purpose. Most people you talk to expect “reading” to mean physically reading the book. But if you listened to it, you know the content as well as someone who read it. There’s usually not a reason to clarify because it’s not usually a useful distinction unless you want to discuss the narrator.

Im confused by it. I cannot listen to audiobooks without either fully focusing on it or forgetting half of it when Im listening to it while doing something else.

Even with podcasts I have the same issue, but there I dont really need to listen to every second and fully remember all of it.

How do you guys listen to audiobooks? Are you just so much better than me in focusing on multiple things at the same time or are you just listening to audiobooks and not doing anything at the same time?

you might be underestimating the number of people with long drives and mundane chores that use their eyes and hands but not their full attention

Some people can do it. I'm with you, I cannot. My mom likes to listen while driving, but if I try to do that I lose the story really fast because I pay too much attention to driving.

The simple answer to this is to pay less attention to driving!

I listen to audiobooks in fits and starts - when driving, when cleaning or washing dishes, when brushing teeth. Basically whenever I can do something else essentially on autopilot.

FWIW you described the exact reason I listen to so many audiobooks. I struggle with insomnia, and one thing that helped quite a bit was taking a walk before bed while listening to an audiobook. If I listened to music I could just tune it out and my brain would just continue cycling on whatever track it was on. Audiobooks forced me to actually pay attention and stop thinking about whatever was in my head. Breaking that thought cycle really helped with getting to sleep after.

I moved somewhere for work, that doesn't have NPR on the radio dial, and the app just isn't that great. So instead of listening to the radio, I play audiobooks during my commute.

Commuting, washing dishes, walking or driving to do an errand, that kind of thing. Sometimes I pause if I'm in a particularly complex driving situation or something, but usually I am able to focus and retain a normal amount.

I listen to audiobooks that I’ve already read while working on task that aren’t mentally challenging. Sanderson’s books are actually great for this as they’re all interconnected and that makes for a good reason to “reread” then.

I believe all those people multitasking while listening to the book are not actually paying as much attention as you'd think. Like watching low quality tv used to be popular.

Except it's a shame because these books are not low quality. For me it's unimaginable that I could do anything else while reading. It puts my brain and imagination to work at 110%, and I love it.

One of the sibling comments is mentioning replacing radio with listening to an audiobook. Radio!!!! I'm pretty sure the reading experience is wildly different.

I love reading, but there's too much going on in my life to be able to devote an uninterrupted chunk of time to reading. So audiobooks are a compromise that fills in the gaps that I do have, even if a few minutes long. These add up throughout the day, and I've covered quite a significant amount of fiction and non-fiction in the 15-ish years I've been doing this.

This is probably skewed heavily by the credits system that Audible uses. Combined with the bundle where the Audible and Kindle versions are discounted together, it is often very low friction to get the audio version.

Of course, this is where my question of this view comes in. If you cut out Audible, how certain is Sanderson that the same number of audio books would be purchased? If it cuts over half of the sales, than that more than justifies the lower cut in profit, no?

With these books specifically, he already made money from his core fan base via a Kickstarter campaign. So the sales through Audible would have already been lower than a regular release.

Well, yeah. But that isn't helping his stance here. Doesn't necessarily hurt, but is a distraction.

He is claiming that audible gives a raw cut of profit, particularly to the smaller artists. But is there evidence that they give a smaller net payout to the same audience?

There are no sales through Audible for these books. He specifically chose not to release them on Audible.

I'm fairly certain he was just looking at numbers of other books of his for comparison.

My wife and I listen to books together. We have tried, and failed, several times to buy two books and read them together. One inevitably gets ahead and has to wait for the other which ends up killing the whole experience. We haven’t bought a book in years now but have spent a large amount of time, close to if not in excess of our television time, listening to audiobooks together.

I use to have a big library of fantasy and sci do books that I was really proud of and was the primary one dragging my feet about trying audiobooks because I thought they would be an inferior product. I was wrong and I love them more than reading now. My only gripe is the classic space skip in a chapter usually delineated by like 3 stars are pretty jarring in audiobook format with the author just moving on to the next section without mentioning it.

That scene change seems like a missed opportunity to use a quiet bell/gong or other small audio cue.

I feel your pain there though, I bought a new ereader this year and a goodly number of the books I've read since have had issues with scene skips not using any kind of indicator mid chapter.

I'm one of those people. Simply because sitting down to read requires a complete devotion and time out which is hard with 4 small children and a wife.

But listening allows me to do chores around the house, and enjoy at the same time.

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