Specialists: Performance and quality of content are among the most prominent factors for its success

The audiobook imposes its rhythm on new generations

Specialists in digital and audio libraries confirmed the growing spread and importance of the audiobook, in light of the desire of new generations to benefit from books in the shortest and fastest possible way in our era, which imposes its accelerated rhythm on all aspects of life, noting that the factors for the success of the audiobook include the narrator's voice, the method of performance, the quality of the recorded content and the volume of sales.

They added during a session entitled "Audio Books and New Generations", within the activities of the 14th Sharjah Children's Reading Festival, that audio books formed a kind of alternative to the missing parents of millions of orphaned children who do not find anyone to read to them, considering that this feature of audio books constituted an unprecedented addition in the creative and knowledge industries sector.

The session was attended by Ahmed Al Tamimi, one of the most important audio commentators at Snackbook, who has recorded more than 45 audiobooks, Yasmina Jreissati, Managing Editor at Storytell, one of the largest audiobook and e-book subscription companies, and Annie Oswald, Vice President of Books and Audio at FranklinCovey.

Yasmina Jreissati pointed out that the preference of young people for paper or audio books depends on the market, adding: "Young people in Germany did not read (Harry Potter) but listened to it, but in our region audiobooks are still relatively new, and their market is emerging and has not reached the maturity that allows it to replace paper books."

For her part, Annie Oswald confirmed that young people listen to music and podcast episodes and have started listening to audio books, but the "alpha" generation, which followed the "Z" generation, or the post-millennial generation, is more interested in audiobooks than the generations before it.

While Ahmed Al-Tamimi explained that young people have started to prefer the audiobook due to its easy access in various places: in the car, club, office, home, and at any time, and he expected that audiobooks will spread very widely in the future.