Ryan Min walked up to a dimly-lit bar on a Saturday morning in early May, claimed a seat on the right side and placed an order.
“I’m really into trippy, mind-bending, twisty thrillers,” Min, a 27-year-old software engineer in Manhattan, said. “What would you recommend?”
The bartender presented him with an audiobook sampling of a Stephen King best seller and a pair of cushioned headphones. This bar was stocked with a variety of audiobooks, ordered based on preferred vibe, rather than alcohol.
Across the bar, Rachel Sun, 29, an accountant in New York, ordered a swoon-worthy “enemies-to-lovers” tale. The bartender obliged. When both had savored the previews, the bartender offered them each an audiobook on the house.
The house, in this case, is the Audible Story House — a pop up bookstore staged by the audiobook giant, which is owned by Amazon, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The over-6,000-square-foot retail space, which is open through May, does not, of course, hold any physical books.
“People want not only to have IRL experiences, they want things that are tangible and not just digital,” said James Finn, Audible’s global head of brand and content marketing. The aim of this bookless bookstore, therefore, was to “bring the concept and the intimacy of listening to audiobooks and podcasts and various productions to life in a different way,” he said.
Audible’s take on the bookstore is a three-story emporium complete with an event space for craft nights and author panels and a cafe selling matcha lattes and merch like baseball caps inscribed with the phrase “I heard it on a podcast.” The shop also has two large listening lounges equipped with surround-sound, listening booths where individuals or small groups can sample the audiobooks and a listening bar where patrons can consult a “story tender” to get personalized recommendations from a list of titles available on Audible.
There are bookcases arranged by genre, as in any bookstore, but instead of paperbacks, the shelves hold story tiles — translucent slabs featuring a rendering of a book’s cover. Shoppers who tap the tiles with their devices are led to a preview of the audiobook on the company’s website.
Although physical books still dominate the market, digital audiobooks are among the fastest-growing segments in publishing, according to data from the Association of American Publishers. The share of publishers’ revenues coming from digital audiobooks totaled more than 11 percent last year, up from 3.5 percent in 2016.
This has led booksellers across the country to shift their sales strategies in the hopes of winning over the audiobook consumer. LibroFM, a service that allows shoppers to purchase audiobooks directly from independent bookstores, has emerged as a tool to stay competitive against giants like Audible.
Selling audiobooks in-store, however, has been a challenge for independent booksellers, which typically rely on promotions and giveaways to bring their audiobook offerings to the attention of shoppers.
Strand Books, an independent bookstore with four permanent locations in New York, has gotten creative. Last year, the store gave away gift cards for the audiobook version of “Steve Martin Writes the Written Word: Collected Written Word Works by Steve Martin” with the physical copies it sold. And last month, it hid golden tickets in its stores, and shoppers who found them won a yearlong subscription to LibroFM.
“Amazon has done a pretty phenomenal job over the last 20 years of trying to put as many independent bookstores out of business as possible,” said Kat Pongrace, the marketing director at Strand Books. LibroFM has given Strand “a digital storefront” that supports a “healthy independent reading ecosystem,” she added.
The purpose of Audible’s bookstore, unlike that of traditional retailers, is to drive new subscriptions to its platform rather than to allow for the purchase of individual titles. Customers new to Audible are encouraged to sign up for a trial of its service in the store.
“I’m very focused on three core things,” Finn said. “It’s exposing more people to our brand, really leaning into the content that we have that’s distinct and the communities around it, and then just cultural relevance for us.”
Audible’s departure from the traditional bookstore can also be seen in its seemingly single-minded endorsement of low-hanging literary fruit. Over several visits, its “story tenders” frequently recommended classics, trending authors and cemented best sellers in addition to Audible originals. The fiction bookcases were populated by popular titles such as “Normal People” by Sally Rooney and “Yesteryear” by Caro Claire Burke.
While exploring the store, Natasha Woon and Jackie Altman, a pair of friends, tested out the listening booths — alcoves tucked among the bookcases — and a lounge on the basement floor, where they listened to “Pride and Prejudice” in the dark while loafing on a large daybed with other shoppers.
Altman, 24, a neuropsychology technician in Boston, found the “clinking of glasses, the chatter in the background and the dialogue” in the recording appealing, likening the listening experience to watching a movie.
Vaughan Carman, 29, who handles operations at a men’s wear boutique, said he just came to “hang out” and use the space to get some work done. He liked that the space was not too busy nor too bright and that allowed him to focus. While there, he wandered into the listening bar and was recommended Toni Morrison’s “Beloved.”
“I haven’t really used audiobooks,” he said. But, after sampling a snippet of the novel, he thought “it was a good intro to it.”
Yola Mzizi is a reporter for The Times covering fashion and style.
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