'Novel·Epic·Immersion·Voice Actor'... Willa Audiobook Year-End Summary Keywords 4

Willa, an audiobook subscription service, recorded a 2.6-fold growth in total listening time compared to the previous year. Through its 2021 year-end settlement, Willa revealed four key keywords that laid the foundation for the audiobook market growth and forecasted the audiobook industry for the coming year.

This year, the total time Willa users spent listening to audiobooks reached 13.3 million hours, more than doubling from 5.14 million hours the previous year. Cumulative downloads also increased by 1.5 times from 1.8 million to 2.7 million, leading the growth of the domestic audiobook market.

Most Loved Audiobook Genre in 2021: Novels

This year, Willa offered content across various genres including novels, humanities, economics and finance, and self-development. Among the top 20 bestselling audiobooks of 2021, fourteen were novels, receiving great love. Novels accounted for 28% of content listening time by category but grew to 44% over the year, playing a crucial role in increasing consumers' audiobook usage.

Notably, in the audiobook bestseller rankings, author Kim Jin-myung’s ‘Goguryeo’ series and Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘Sherlock Holmes’ series took first and second place respectively. Additionally, the fantasy novel ‘Midnight Library,’ which ranked first in comprehensive bestsellers in bookstores, ranked fourth overall despite being a standalone book, proving that the latest publishing bestsellers are quickly reflected in audiobook popularity. Other popular choices among Willa users included the movie-based ‘Jasan Eobo’ series by author Oh Se-young, new works by Keigo Higashino such as ‘The Swan and the Bat’ and ‘She Has a Plan,’ and Bernard Werber’s ‘Death’ series.

New Challenge for Audiobooks in 2021: Epic Works

A notable trend in users’ content consumption is the increased consumption of long-form novels by major authors. Epic series, which were known to be difficult to tackle in print, are receiving great love from consumers who want to more easily complete them as audiobooks.

The top two audiobook bestsellers were Kim Jin-myung’s ‘Goguryeo’ series (7 volumes) and the classic genre masterpiece ‘Sherlock Holmes’ series (10 volumes). Despite being released relatively late in October, Park Kyung-ri’s ‘Toji’ series (20 volumes) also ranked 17th, confirming the public’s interest in epic audiobooks.

In particular, one volume of the Korean-style epic audiobook ‘Toji’ series, which Willa spent a year producing, achieved the remarkable feat of ranking first in real-time rankings within half a day of release. This is the fastest time to reach number one in Willa’s history. The first four volumes of ‘Toji’ have shown a high completion rate of 66%, maintaining the enthusiasm. On the ‘Toji’ series comment board, a so-called ‘Challenge Toji’ movement aiming to complete all twenty volumes is underway.

Highest Selection Criterion for Works in 2021: Immersion

While the growth of novel audiobooks is notable on Willa, the ‘Mystery, Thriller’ genre received even more attention. Nearly half of the top 20 bestselling novels, totaling eight works, were in the ‘Mystery, Thriller’ genre. The classic ‘Sherlock Holmes’ series ranked second among audiobook bestsellers. Keigo Higashino, a master of mystery and thriller novels, achieved a remarkable record by placing five works in the top 20, starting with ‘The Swan and the Bat,’ followed by ‘She Has a Plan,’ ‘The Wandering Blade,’ ‘The Black Showman and the Murder in the Nameless Village,’ and ‘The Night of the Traffic Police.’

Notably, two works by author Park Hae-ro, who gained attention for Korean-style horror novels, made it into the top 20 novels category, drawing interest. ‘Flesh, the Unavoidable Curse of the Shangga House’ and ‘Receive the God’ did not make a big impact in publishing but gained significant popularity and were reappraised through Willa audiobooks.

The success of ‘Mystery, Thriller’ works in audiobooks is interpreted as being due to the ability to convey emotional lines and tension, which were only imagined in print books, through immersive sound optimized for audiobooks.

New Discovery in Audiobooks in 2021: Voice Actors

Willa’s increase in users’ reading volume is attributed not only to diverse content but also to the power of voice actors. As of November 2021, the number of voice actors registered on Willa surpassed 600, showing that Willa audiobooks focus on complete-content narrated by professional voice actors. Accordingly, the number of users choosing books based on narrators is increasing. About 15% of audiobook reviews specifically mention the narration by voice actors, indicating growing interest.

In response to this rising interest in voice actors, Willa also announced rankings of popular voice actors based on total listening time of their participated works. The voice actor Gil La-young, who participated in the ‘Goguryeo’ series and ‘The Night of the Traffic Police,’ recorded the highest listening time. Following was voice actor Sa Moon-young, who participated in the overall number one audiobook ‘Midnight Library’ as well as ‘Death’ and ‘The Shop Selling Time,’ ranking second. Nam Do-hyung, narrator of ‘Great Expectations’ and ‘The Three-Body Problem,’ Kim Sang-baek of ‘Jasan Eobo’ and ‘Toji,’ and Lee Sang-woon of ‘The Psychology of Money’ and ‘Metaverse’ ranked third, fourth, and fifth respectively.

Beyond the four key keywords, consistently loved works in Willa’s humanities category stand out. The ‘Wide and Shallow Knowledge for Intellectual Conversation’ series ranked third overall. Following this, economic and financial titles such as ‘The Psychology of Money’ and humanities book ‘The Laws of Human Nature’ ranked high.

The three-volume ‘Wide and Shallow Knowledge for Intellectual Conversation’ series has surpassed 280,000 cumulative listening hours, proving its popularity among Willa users. Additionally, the two-volume series ‘The Courage to Be Disliked’ also surpassed 100,000 cumulative listening hours. Thus, Willa’s content loved by users extends beyond novels to various genres.

Willa Audiobook Outlook for 2022

Willa plans to expand its audiobook content more diversely in 2022. While existing audiobooks consisted of content published as books, next year Willa aims to secure original content before it is published in text form. Additionally, it targets securing various content from authors, drama production companies, film companies, and more.

In 2021, Willa gained users’ love through serialized audiobooks such as web novels and magazines. From web novels like ‘Hojupmongjeon’ and ‘THE Runway’ to magazine content like ‘The Economist,’ the number of users consuming serialized content steadily increased. Serialized content, with running times between 30 minutes and 2 hours, is most suitable for regular content consumption during commuting times. As more users listen to serialized content daily or weekly on a regular basis, demand for serialized content is expected to increase in 2022 as well.

Furthermore, as content diversifies, the influence of professional voice actors is expected to naturally expand. In 2021, Willa highlighted the importance of professional voice actors to the extent of producing promotional videos featuring voice actors who narrated major audiobooks. Previously, fandoms for professional voice actors were limited to a few active in the gaming industry. However, as professional voice actor narration content in the audiobook industry expands and diversifies, fandoms are also expected to grow in size.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.