If last December we talked about the lack of audiobooks in Catalan, which were growing by the drop, the audiobook platform Audible has increased its commitment to this language, with a 20% increase in its catalog in the last year, and thirty new titles from Club Editor, Encyclopedia and Ara Llibres.
In an event at the Laie bookstore in Barcelona, ​​the director of Audible in Spain, Juan Baixeras, offers some data on the growth of the sector, with “5.4 of Spaniards who consume audiobooks”, but also “a 45% of people who don’t read, many due to lack of time”: they are, in other words, a potential audience. In fact, Baixeras explains that in one year listening hours have increased by 75%: “We must have some hits”, he quips.
Audible’s director of editorial relations, Irene Bigas, is aware that there is still relatively little content in Catalan – barely 600 titles compared to 14,700 in Spanish – but they are working to reduce the gap, and that is why they have joined forces with these three publishing houses, because if the titles grow, so can the subscribers. He also explained to La Vanguardia the success of the presentation at the European headquarters, in Berlin, of the Catalan growth project on the platform, and that he wants to host original titles in Catalan, of course, but also, as happens in any culture, translations
One of the bets they want to make, he explains, is to try to also have many audiobooks in Catalan released simultaneously with the paper publication, as is the case with some of those presented this Thursday. Novels, for example, like the latest books by Eva Piquer, Landing (Club Editor, narrated by Alba Pujol and Jordi Boixaderas) or Xavier Bosch, 32 de març (Univers, narrated by Núria Samso), but also non-fiction as recent as Ruralisme l Cuina o barbà rie (Ara Llibres) by Maria Nicolau (Ara Llibres, narrated by Marta Begué), by Vanessa Freixa, or one of last year’s surprises, Cuina o barbà rie (Ara Llibres) by Maria Nicolau , narrated by herself.
“Listening to Rodoreda is magical, it seems that she wrote to be narrated”, said the editorial director of Club Editor, Alejandro Dardik, following the publication of some of the writer’s books a few days ago on the 40th anniversary of her death. Dardik has also celebrated the nomination as a finalist for the Boulder International Booker of Eva Baltasar, the entire narrative trilogy of which is available narrated by Aina Clotet.
According to the director of the Enciclopèdia group, Ester Pujol, “audiobooks broaden the horizon of these works”, in addition to helping people with reading difficulties to read. “The more formats, the better”, he insisted, because “they are not incompatible but complementary”.
In this sense, Joan Carles Girbés, of Ara Llibres, has explained that audiobooks also “make the books we publish bigger, and expand the margins of Catalan literature”. Girbés has stated that the current moment of the audiobook reminds him of “the beginning of the electronic book”, because it is a time when “you have to assume high costs but there is still no habit of consumption, which will have to create by growing the offer”.
An offer that goes through the simultaneous releases with the paper and also at the same time as in other languages, Bigas said before announcing that, for example, soon they will publish the audiobook of Camilla Läckberg’s next novel, as well as also another background title simultaneously in Spanish, Catalan, Basque and Galician, in what they call multicasting (narrated with different voices for the characters): a classic like George Orwell’s Animal Rebellion.
