Paying Homage to Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
In this Open magazine article about audiobooks in India, Karadi Tales CEO C.P. Viswanath explains the popularity of children’s audiobooks.
Excerpt from the article:
CP Vishwanath, director of Karadi Tales, which through its imprint of Charkha Audiobooks has more than 50 titles in its catalogue, has an explanation for the popularity of children’s audio books. Because they are for children, the stories are usually limited to 20 to 30 minutes. An adult novel would need hours to listen through to completion. “Adult fiction is in the range of 20,000 plus words. It requires continuity. In India, we don’t really have long drives—we have an hour or so of stop-and-go traffic snarls. Worldwide, fiction is ‘read’ on interstate highways. In switching on and off while ‘reading’ fiction, you lose the book experience. The consumption demographic for adult fiction in India is very difficult,” he says.
On the other hand, children’s audiobooks is a competitive market with many players. It takes an entirely different creative approach to tell the story. “The script, the narration, background music, songs, illustrations, etcetera, have to be right from the word go. The child has many options today and so your product has to be very strong to get noticed. That’s the reason why many people haven’t entered this category,” says Vishwanath.
Read the whole article here!
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