Audiobooks are usually distributed on CDs, cassette tapes, or digital formats (e.g., MP3 and Windows Media Audio). The term "books on tape" is frequently used as a synonym for audiobooks, but cassette tapes are no longer the dominant media for audiobooks. In 2005, Cassette-tape sales made up roughly 16% of the audiobook market, with CDs sales accounting for 74% of the market, and downloadable audio books accounting for approximately 9%. In the United States, the most recent sales survey (performed by the Audio Publishers' Association in the summer of 2006 for the year 2005) estimated the industry to be worth 871 million US dollars. Current industry estimates hover at around two billion US dollars per year. Most new popular titles put out by the major publishers are available in audio book format simultaneously with publication of the hardcover edition. There are approximately 25,000 current titles on cassette, CD, or downloadable format. Unabridged audiobooks are word for word readings of a book, while abridged audio books have text edited out by the abridger. Audiobooks also come as fully dramatized versions of the printed book, sometimes calling upon a complete cast, music, and sound effects. Each spring, the Audie Awards are given to the top nominees for performance and production in several genre categories. There are quite a few radio programs serializing books, sometimes read by the author or sometimes by an actor, most of them on the BBC.

1. ULYSSES by James Joyce 2. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald 3. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce 4. LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov 5. BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley 6. THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner 7. CATCH-22 8. DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler 9. SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence 10. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck 11. UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry 12. THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler 13. 1984 by George Orwell 14. I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves 15. TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf 16. AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser 17. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers 18. SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut 19. INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison 20. NATIVE SON by Richard Wright 21. HENDERSON THE RAIN KING by Saul Bellow 22. APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA by John O'Hara 23. U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos 24. WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson 25. A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster 26. THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James 27. THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James 28. TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald 29. THE STUDS LONIGAN TRILOGY by James T. Farrell 30. THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford 31. ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell 32. THE GOLDEN BOWL by Henry James 33. SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser 34. A HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh 35. AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner 36. ALL THE KING'S MEN by Robert Penn Warren 37. THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder 38. HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster 39. GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin 40. THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene 41. LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding 42. DELIVERANCE by James Dickey 43. A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series) by Anthony Powell 44. POINT COUNTER POINT by Aldous Huxley 45. THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway 46. THE SECRET AGENT by Joseph Conrad 47. NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad 48. THE RAINBOW by D.H. Lawrence 49. WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence 50. TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller 51. THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer 52. PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT by Philip Roth 53. PALE FIRE by Vladimir Nabokov 54. LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner 55. ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac 56. THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett 57. PARADE'S END by Ford Madox Ford 58. THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton 59. ZULEIKA DOBSON by Max Beerbohm 60. THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy 61. DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather 62. FROM HERE TO ETERNITY by James Jones 63. THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLES by John Cheever 64. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger 65. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess 66. OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham 67. HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad 68. MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis 69. THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton 70. THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET by Lawrence Durell 71. A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes 72. A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS by V.S. Naipaul 73. THE DAY OF THE LOCUST by Nathanael West 74. A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway 75. SCOOP by Evelyn Waugh 76. THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark 77. FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce 78. KIM by Rudyard Kipling 79. A ROOM WITH A VIEW by E.M. Forster 80. BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh 81. THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH by Saul Bellow 82. ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner 83. A BEND IN THE RIVER by V.S. Naipaul 84. THE DEATH OF THE HEART by Elizabeth Bowen 85. LORD JIM by Joseph Conrad 86. RAGTIME by E.L. Doctorow 87. THE OLD WIVES' TALE by Arnold Bennett 88. THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London 89. LOVING by Henry Green 90. MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie 91. TOBACCO ROAD by Erskine Caldwell 92. IRONWEED by William Kennedy 93. THE MAGUS by John Fowles 94. WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys 95. UNDER THE NET by Iris Murdoch 96. SOPHIE'S CHOICE by William Styron 97. THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles 98. THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain 99. THE GINGER MAN by J.P. Donleavy 100. THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth Tarkington

With the development of portable cassette recorders audiotapes had become very popular and by the late 1960s libraries became a source of free audio books on cassettes. Instructional and educational recordings came first followed by self-help tapes, and then by literature and fiction. In 1970 Books on Tape Corporation started rental plans for audio books distribution. The company expanded their services selling their products to libraries. Audio books gained more and more popularity. By the middle of 1980s the audio publishing business grew to several billion dollars a year. The new companies, Recorded Books and Chivers Audio Books, were the first to develop integrated production teams and to work with professional actors. And since libraries made up the largest segment of their market space, Chivers Audio Books established close connections with them from the very beginning of the company's existence.

The Disney stories are part of our children's music culture, and to exclude it would leave just part of a story told. People of older generation certainly still have nostalgic feelings for these fantastic vintage Children's vinyl phonograph records. In 1934 RCA/Victor released the first gramophone records of Disney soundtracks. The music from popular Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphony cartoons was recorded by Frank Luther and his orchestra in November 1933. The series also included 'In a Silly Symphony,' 'Dance of the Bogey Man,' 'Mickey Mouse and Minnie's in Town,' and 'Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?' Three Little Pigs In 1965 the Buena Vista soundtrack album of 'Mary Poppins' was a super hit of all times and spent 14 weeks in the No. 1 position on the Billboard chart setting up a company record. The recording won two Grammy Awards, Best Recording for Children and Best Original Score. The sales exceeded 2 million copies. In 1988 the soundtrack of 'Oliver & Company' marked the end of the vinyl era -- it was the last Disney animated feature soundtrack to be released domestically on 12-inch disk. The CD revolution had arrived.