Publishers Weekly is changing its coverage of audiobooks. We will continue to offer news and feature coverage of the physical and digital audio formats, as well as a monthly audiobook physical bestseller list and an iBook audiobook bestseller lists. We will, however, no longer review audiobooks effective August 1.
This change is the result of some recent efforts to keep PW's editorial strategy in line with the shifting landscape of the publishing world. Physical audiobooks sales have been in a steep and steady decline as consumers flock to digital audiobooks, and audio publishers have largely adopted direct-to-consumer marketing strategies. And with the sale of physical audiobooks dropping dramatically (units down 29% through July 22, according to BookScan), we have made the decision to stop reviewing audiobooks and move more resources to pre-publication book reviewing.
