There are audiobooks for the first three Harry Potter books only, unless more were released very recently.

kitakitsune wrote:

Japanese people do not like audiobooks period and there is nearly zero market for them in Japan.

Looking at the growing numbers of learners of the language all over the world, and taking into consideration that they would probably supplement their learning with audio-books if they were available to them, producing for that market could proof to be a gold-mine.

It is the same with e-books in pdf or other formats mainly used outside of Japan. Kindle might break into the Japanese market, but that doesn't necessarily follow, that the books will be purchasable outside Japan, where there is clearly a demand for Japanese books.

And in Japan the situation is not any better from what I have read about that topic. There are companies releasing ebooks, tied to certain readers and only with them the books can be read. I am not saying that this is something only Japanese companies do. But it would be so much easier to open up the market both ways, allowing foreign customers easy access, and gain a huge income from it.

Only targeting the domestic-market, allthough a huge one as far as Japan goes, is a bit short-sighted. But it is their choice, they must know what they are doing, and if they can indeed miss out on the chance of making more money - so be it.

bertoni wrote:

There are audiobooks for the first three Harry Potter books only, unless more were released very recently.

Last time I checked there were only two, so things are slowly improving.

kitakitsune wrote:

Japanese people do not like audiobooks period and there is nearly zero market for them in Japan.

I read an article that argued things were slowly changing and Japanese began to appreciate how useful audiobooks are especially when your schedule is tight. Sometimes Japan is just slow at adopting new technologies/ideas, ie. iPhone was a total flop in first generations but now everybody wants one.

When I was in college I commuted my last 2-3 years to and from the main campus which was 45min to an hour away one way. I started listening to audiobooks during this time because it was convenient and wouldn't put me to sleep (music causes me to doze), plus I wanted to expand the books I knew. Most Japanese probably commute about this same amount of time each day in the metro areas, so I can't see why it hasn't caught on.
Honestly I would not be suprised to learn there was some move by the big publishers to restrict/stop audiobooks in Japan. The publishers were mega corps 10-20 years ago, and Japanese companies are not particularly renowned for their expanded-to-incorporate-new-business-ideas.

I've never listened to them but I know they exist. Something similar to audiobooks are radio shows (think original War of the Worlds over the radio in the 30-40's). A lot of anime/Light novels release like this. They're a lot like audiobooks I suspect.

ドラマＣＤ，朗読, ラジオドラマ、青春アドベンチャー、ＦＭシアター, オーディオブック

http://www.febe.jp/
http://www.dlmarket.jp/default.php/manu … 57/sort/6d
http://audio.shosai.ne.jp/
http://www.kotonoha.co.jp/title/listen_index.html
http://www.nichigai.co.jp/yomikata/musashi.html

ニコニコ動画 http://www.nicovideo.jp/
ニコみみ http://www.nicomimi.net/

http://www.jpmp3.com/index.php

http://rutracker.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=525
http://www.verycd.com/
http://ska4ka.com/

http://ska4ka.com/16922-harii-pottaa-to … ook-2.html
http://ska4ka.com/15242-harii-pottaa-to … tone-.html

Last edited by buonaparte (2012 January 31, 11:44 am)

Jarvik7 wrote:

Probably something to do with how listening to an audiobook takes many times longer than reading silently to yourself. I've listened to maybe 3 audiobooks in my entire life because they try my patience.

Thank you, you said it perfectly.
Sometimes when a book is really exciting, I tend to read very fast. An audio book sort of kills the excitement for me.

But I'm getting the Harry Potter audio books and I plan to listen to them during "downtime", maybe for passive listening.