We talked to Nick Johnson, creative director of audiobook platform Libro.fm, to find out all about his social purpose corporation and why the Aotearoa books industry is so excited about it.

What is Libro.fm?

Libro.fm is an audiobook platform that partners with independent bookshops as curators, marketers and beneficiaries of audiobook sales. Every audiobook purchased gives money to an indie bookshop of the customer’s choice. Libro has about half a million audio books so far, including a playlist of banned books. Because of this symbiotic relationship with bookstores Libro is described as a social purpose corporation, or social enterprise, and a disruptor to an Amazon-dominated market (Audible is Amazon’s audiobook platform). 

At the time of writing, ​​over 3,200 independent booksellers have joined Libro from 90 countries, including New Zealand, (the sign-up rate is about 50 bookstores a month) and their customers come from 206 countries with 95 languages represented on the platform. 

Why is Libro a hot topic in Aotearoa right now?

Nick Johnson, the creative director of Libro, is currently travelling around New Zealand talking with stakeholders about Libro and signing up booksellers to the platform. “We’re not some nameless business,” said Johnson. “When booksellers have questions, real people answer them.” Publishers and booksellers in the industry here are so far excited about Libro, with over 40 bookstores signed up from Aotearoa so far, and more to come. 

How popular are audiobooks in New Zealand? 

It’s hard to get reliable data on the audiobook market in New Zealand, but this report shows that sales for audiobooks in NZ, as in the rest of the world, are doubling year-on-year and that there are significant growth opportunities in the audiobooks market for NZ authors and publishers. On a global level the market has grown from being worth $1 billion to $5 billion in five years. 

Are New Zealand books on Libro?

Yes, is the short answer. Johnson says Libro has most of the audiobooks so far produced from New Zealand books, which isn’t a lot in the context of half a million. Johnson doesn’t have an exact number because publishers often group Australian and NZ titles together when they get sent to Libro. But Johnson suspects the total number is less than 100. 

Why aren’t there more NZ audiobooks?

It’s expensive to make audiobooks and at this point in time publishers are relying on an audiobook grant from the Ministry of Culture and Heritage to make them, and that’s not sustainable long-term. On RNZ Claire Murdoch, president of the Publishers Association of New Zealand, told Kathryn Ryan that audiobooks grow the pie rather than take from it, or in other words increase the market for print rather than cannibalise it. So it’s economically wise to produce more audiobooks. In her role at Penguin NZ, Murdoch has published 25 New Zealand audiobooks from a range of genres and they’re doing well.

Johnson acknowledges that we have a challenge in that our market is small and audiobooks cost money to make – but that’s where Libro comes in: the Libro platform lets booksellers have early access to audiobooks so they can recommend titles and curate books for customers and boost visibility. Libro doesn’t allow customers to give reviews on books, only booksellers because “they’re the experts. These are people who know books. They know the industry. Our algorithm, our secret sauce,” says Johnson, “relies extremely heavily on bookseller recommendations. The more recommendations a book has, the better it’s going to appear in our different results. So that’s what we’re really trying to encourage New Zealand booksellers and New Zealand publishers to do: create the books, get them in front of the booksellers, and get the booksellers writing recommendations. That’ll lead to more sales, which will then lead to the publishers wanting to create more audiobooks.”

How is Libro different to Amazon’s Audible?

In their annual report, Libro says: “We want audiobook lovers to make the switch from Amazon-owned Audible to Libro.fm, so that they can support independent bookshops (and not billionaire CEOs who go to space). In addition to sharing resources on Amazon-alternatives and the harm of Audible Exclusives, we worked with authors and booksellers to further encourage shopping small. We also routinely promote audiobooks by authors such as Brandon Sanderson and Cory Doctorow who don’t allow their audiobooks to be sold on Audible.”

The whole giving money to indie booksellers is very appealing as well as the idea of booksellers being able to review and curate audiobooks. Another good reason to switch from Audible to Libro is that Amazon is a late-capitalist behemoth accused of tax avoidance, abuse of worker’s rights and racism among other things that you can read more about in this article on the Ethical Consumer website. 

How do I use Libro as a customer? 

There are three different ways that customers can buy an audiobook from Libro: on demand (book by book); a monthly membership (where you get audiobook credit each month); and a credit bundle (where you get a bunch of credits in one go). You can purchase direct from bookstores who are signed up with Libro (they’ll have a Libro badge on their website) or you can go directly to Libro.fm (where you can choose your bookstore to support: you’ll get a prompt to select one within a 50 mile radius of your location but you can choose a bookstore from anywhere in the world so long as they’re partnered with Libro).

And how does that bookseller commission get worked out? 

When you purchase an audiobook from Libro.fm you can select a bookstore to support. If you’re buying a one-off audiobook then the bookstore receives 20-30% of that sale price: the 20-30% is worked out with the publishers which is why it varies (for each sale the publisher gets a cut, then Libro and the bookstore). If you start a monthly membership the bookstore you select gets 10% of the monthly fee; and if you’re getting a credit bundle (for example, a gift for someone) the bookstore also gets 10% of that price.

Does it cost bookstores anything to join Libro? 

No, there’s no financial commitment for bookstores. “The way we approach it is that they’re our marketing team,” says Johnson. “They’re the ones who have relationships with their customers and their communities. They’re the one who’s promoting [Libro] to their customers in the communities. So they’re helping sell the product. And every time an audiobook is sold, a bookstore makes some money. We make some money. We’re happy.”

All booksellers have to do is to the the page about joining Libro as a bookstore, here, read the information, and if they’re keen, there’s a simple agreement to sign. There’s no requirement on the bookstore to even promote audiobooks or stay in the partnership for any minimum amount of time, they can cancel whenever. 

To sell audiobooks some bookstores can integrate the Libro platform onto their websites. For New Zealand there’s work in progress to figure out how to integrate e-commerce systems in this part of the world. 

How did Libro begin?

Libro celebrated its 10-year anniversary in June this year. For Johnson and fellow founders the journey has been an intentionally slow and steady one: “We’ve seen so many businesses sprint and then fizzle, so the approach we’re taking is that we are running a marathon as opposed to a sprint.”

It was in 2012 when a computer scientist, a business major and an arts and marketing guy – a bunch of university mates – walked into a bar and decided to start a business together. They would put forward ideas and try to tear them apart to see how well they’d stack up. One of the guys had (and still has) a boutique publishing house and saw that audiobooks were growing but indies had no way to participate. The group tossed the audiobook platform idea around and couldn’t tear it down. So it stuck. 

Since then Libro.fm has become the number one competitor for Audible and is being celebrated by the indie bookshop community as a gamechanger for them, and for audiobooks, and for books in general. 

What has been challenging for Libro so far? 

“There have been difficulties, for sure, but not a lot,” says Johnson. One hurdle was to get publishers to offer fair licensing rates – to at least offer the same rate to Libro as they do to Amazon, for example. But most publishers have been supportive and now, given their size, it’s easier. 

The biggest problem has been visibility: “people haven’t heard of us because we don’t have hundreds of millions of dollars to buy all ads and things of that nature,” said Johnson. But he says that once people hear they can get an audiobook at the same price as a competitor but through a local bookstore that they can also support financially it’s an easy switch. 

Who is the market for audiobooks?

Johnson says the market is changing. Audiobook buyers have traditionally been women aged between 45-65 but that age bracket is getting younger and more male. Johnson thinks the reason is that now everyone has an e-book player in their pocket (smartphone) and the popularity of podcasts (especially serialised ones where each episode is like a chapter of a book) has helped boost the popularity of audiobooks. Also, he says, people want screen breaks and audiobooks are a chance to absorb a book while you’re doing something active, like gardening, cooking or exercising. Audiobooks are a convenient way to consume stories. 

Johnson says that research shows that people consume books in multiple ways: there’s very few people who consume in one medium only. “I think people discover that audio allows them to enjoy more books, and at times when you couldn’t read before. Like when you’re doing the dishes.”