Members of the APA

Listed here are the current members of the APA. For further information about the APA, membership and a printed copy of the Resources Directory please contact:

APA Administrator

Introduction

Human beings have been telling each other stories for almost as long as they have been co-operating to gather food. Words free us from physical constraints. I can say 'Paris' or 'Amazon rain forest' and communicate a sense of place without having to be there.

When Edison recorded 'Mary had a little lamb' with a needle and tinfoil in 1877, he added an extra freedom: he made it possible to separate audience and storyteller. We in the audiobook industry bring together these two strands, the age-old tradition of storytelling and the latest innovations of technology.

It took a while to devise a medium that ran a little longer than Edison's two-minute cylinder; not until 1935 did the RNIB embark on the systematic production of Talking Books. Their first recordings included (plus ça change!) Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, in 25-minute chunks of shellac discs. But by the 1990s mainstream publishers had launched audio lists and from 1995 to 2002 the market grew at about 20 per cent per year. The public has realized that audiobooks are not a second best, a substitute for the printed book, but a valid medium in their own right.

The technological march continues: audiobooks are now available to download over the Internet, and the advent of podcasts (files delivered to your computer by 'subscription', free or paid) has also increased the awareness of the pleasure and value of the spoken word.

Audiobooks add to the written material - music, sound effects, but above all the emotion, energy or clarity that an intelligent, thoughtful and well-prepared reader and a polished production can bring to a text. Some may say that the new technologies pose a threat to existing physical media, but they also increase awareness of spoken word and may bring whole new audiences to it.

Our challenge in 2006 and beyond is to make the opportunities offered by new technology outstrip the threats.

Nicholas Jones
Producer and APA committee member