Audiobook Stylistics: Comparing print and audio in the bestselling segment

Abstract

The paper explores differences between bestsellers in print and the most popular audiobooks in a subscription-based streaming service for books (‘beststreamers’) by means of computational stylistics. The point of departure is the complete set of print bestsellers and digital audiobook beststreamers for the Swedish book market 2015–2019, in total 172 novels. We probed 34 linguistic measures to track differences between subsets at the stylistic level. The results indicate that there are pronounced differences between the formats. Print bestsellers are longer, syntactically more complex and varied, and seem to focus more on depiction. Beststreaming audiobooks, by contrast, are shorter, more straightforwardly written, and appear to highlight plot and dialogue. The results are replicated when the comparison is restricted to crime fiction, the most prominent genre in the commercial top segment. Given these results, it is argued that it is possible to discern a particular audiobook style as one factor affecting book consumption in digital formats, and conversely that the printed format is associated with other stylistic preferences.

Platformization and Publishing: Changes in Literary Publishing

“…39 Döring et al [15]. and targeted digital marketing favours simple narrative structures, 40 countering the maintaining of broad catalogues that include literature with complex narratives and demanding language. 41 Third, a market characterized by customization, enabled by datafication, customization and selection, promotes new priorities and calls for new strategies.…”

“…Efficacy and precision in targeting customers are competitive advantages to the platform businesses. 4 In the literary industry, the ongoing change is manifested in the accelerated rise in the distribution of audiobooks, as demonstrated in statements like 'The fastestgrowing segment in publishing', 5 'Steep rise in Audiobook Sales', 6 and 'Downloaded audio: biggest format jump'. 7 Based on a qualitative interview study of editorial leaders in Norwegian publishing houses, this article explores the influence of platformization on literary publishing, as expressed in the research question: How do streaming services and growth in audiobooks influence literary publishing?…”

Author gender and text characteristics in contemporary Swedish fiction

“…A third category is formed by the books which are neither in the crime nor the prestige class. See Berglund and Dahllöf (2021) for details on this category assignment.…”

The year’s work in stylistics 2021

“…Further work using computational methods is that conducted by Berglund and Dahllöf (2021), whose article ‘Audiobook stylistics: comparing print and audio in the bestselling segment’ was published in the Journal of Cultural Analytics . Their work explores stylistic differences between the print and ebook best sellers in Sweden.…”