Did you know that Americans spend more than 100 hours commuting to work each year? According to the U.S. Census Bureau the national average is 24.3 minutes one way per commute. If you do the math, one could listen to a book a week, as the average cd audio book is 4.4 hours long. As a matter of fact, the car is the most popular place to listen to an audio book.
The Audio Publishers Association agrees that the primary usage of audio books is while traveling or commuting in the car. They report that the average listener is over 30 years old, has a higher income than a non-listener, and are well educated and up to date on the latest book trends.
Want to know what these people are listening to? According to Simply Audiobooks, the largest audio book company based out of Canada, their most shipped title is James Patterson’s Honeymoon. The next most popular rental is A Short History Of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, and the third most shipped cd audio book is Blink by Malcom Gladwell. They also report that the audio book that has been “lost” is transit the most is Benjamin Franklin: An American Life.
A few more interesting nuggets of audio book trivia:
- The most popular genre is Fiction with the Children’s genre second, and Business coming in third.
- The majority of customers are an average age of 41 and are commuters.
- 20% of customers live in the state of California
- Customers are evenly split between the two sexes.
Although the data points to the fact that the average CD audio book aficionado is all grown up, many families are now choosing children’s audio books for in car entertainment as the children’s book genre is #2 in popularity. CD audio books are the favorite means of audio book distribution although downloads are steadily increasing according to data. Browse the titles available at Audible here.