Without audiobooks a number of people wouldn't normally have experienced the planet's most well-known tales.
Oral literature is mankind's earliest type of storytelling, with an unfathomable amount of stories being passed down through the generations in all corners of the world for thousands of years. Though certain countries don't place as great of an emphasis on oral traditions as they did throughout the past, they nevertheless persist strongly in a few situations, like telling stories to children. The founder of the hedge fund that owns Waterstones will understand that oral storytelling has undergone a resurgence lately by means of audiobooks. Nevertheless, while they might seem like a modern-day occurrence, the history of audiobooks goes back numerous decades. Sound recordings first became feasible around a hundred and fifty years back and the first tests were recitations of nursery rhymes and children's tales. Spoken word tracks continued to be made in the following decades but had been restricted to about four minutes in length.
The phrase audiobook emerged in the 1970s, but it was the 1930s that saw the greatest revolution in the format. At the time these were called talking books, that were envisioned as reading materials for blind people. Governments in some nations allowed producers to bypass the laws of copyright, which offered them use of a lot of material, but technical limits meant full length books could never be recorded. Instead poems, short stories and plays, and specific chapters of books were the most common early audiobooks. This content continued to remain this way for a number of decades, but the market base did see an expansion to children as well as other adults without sight complications. The head of the hedge fund that has shares in Amazon will likely be well aware that this laid the foundation for the future audiobook market, pushing it in to the mainstream as an independent artform instead of solely as a method of making accessibility.
Every single decade during the last fifty years has brought along with it technological modifications that has influenced the way we consume art. Film and television has experienced VHS and DVDs. Music has experienced cassettes and CDs. Both have now been impacted by portable products and streaming. Moreover, a few of these technological advancements have actually assisted to expand the audiobook market. The leader of the hedge fund that partially owns WHSmith should be able to tell you that it has grown to become so popular that individuals do not need to consider specialised retailers, because most book merchants also offer audiobooks. People enjoy having the ability to listen to stories whilst they are doing other tasks like driving, chores, and work, which audiobooks are just perfect for. The audiobook industry now employs thousands of individuals, with the most important roles being narrator, studio engineer, and producer.