Have People Stopped Reading?

Julie Eickhoff
Jun 22
2 min read

Funny question…because you’re reading this! But you knew this was going to be short and I think we’re all pretty comfortable reading short things. But how about long things…like books? Are we still reading?

Or are we listening…

I was out for a walk one day listening to a podcast. The podcasters (a married couple) were interviewing other podcasters (another married couple). And both sets of podcasters had recently written a book. They were discussing how much work writing a book took them…years of work, rewriting, marketing, etc. They were both passionate about the content of their books and they were written with the intent of helping lots of people.

And then one of them said…"It’s so hard getting people to READ the book!” And I literally stopped in my tracks. They weren’t talking about getting people interested in their topic or marketing…it was literally hard to get people to sit down and READ the book. And then one of them said to the other, “But I LOVED your AUDIOBOOK! It was so fun to listen to!”

That was a mic drop moment…

People LOVE listening.

And then another day I was outside talking with a neighbor as she was getting ready to head to her book club. This is a group of ladies who meet monthly to discuss a chosen book they read…I don’t need to tell you how book clubs work…or how they USED to work. She admitted that she hadn’t “read” the book, but that she listened to it as an audiobook. Yep…she listened to the book for book club.

I know I may be ruffling the feathers of true readers…people who still love the feel of turning a page and can’t go to sleep at night without reading. Those people (maybe you!) are still out there. But I feel like we are seeing a shift…either fewer people are actually reading books (and more are listening to audiobooks), or it could be that the amount of “written word” we consume has increased and a greater proportion of it is now consumed audibly. Not that we don’t read, but that we can consume more content if at last part of it is audibly consumed.

People are not abandoning books, but a growing share of book consumption is happening through audio.

· In 2025, 51% of Americans had listened to an audiobook. (1)

· The U.S. audiobook market reached $2.43 BILLION in 2025 and has grown for roughly 15 consecutive years (2)

· Audible's membership has grown nearly 800% in ten years. (3)

So what does that mean for those of use who create audio…like voice artists, audiobook narrators and podcasters?

It means keep creating. People are choosing to listen to you.