Reader Traffic on Classic Books

[TedL]

Readers or Book Coordinators in Librivox sometimes decide to record a book again that is already available in Librivox. I looked at a couple of books that had multiple versions, to see how users find and use the later versions. I also wondered how "classic" titles get so much more traffic than unknown titles, and found an answer to that.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the 2nd most popular book in the Internet Archive collection of Librivox books, has 8 versions of the full book, one 'dramatic reading' and 3 versions of the abridged version. (According to a title search on the Librivox website.)

History of Versions - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
The first version of the full book was put on Librivox in 2006 with multiple readers, Version 2 in 2010 by Kara Shallenberg, Version 3 in 2007 by Peter Yearsley, Version 4 in 2010 by Eric Leach, Version 5 is missing from the search results, Version 6 in 2019 by StudioMike, Version 7 in 2020 by Craig Franklin, and Version 8 in 2021 by Vin Cramer. (I don't see any explanation for why Version 3 was put in the catalog three years before Version 2).

The Dramatic Reading was done by a large cast in 2011. The first abridged version was done in 2007 by Kirsten Ferreri, Version 2 in 2012 by ashleighjane, and Version 3 in 2013 by Phil Chenevert.


Finding Versions of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
With all these more recent, and presumably improved, versions of the book, I tried to see to what extent audience traffic has shifted to the newer versions.

Internet Archive page: When I went to the Librivox page in Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/librivoxaudio?sort=-downloads , sorted by 'All-time Views', it shows Alice's Adventures as the 2nd book in the collection, with 23 million views. Clicking on that entry takes me to the 2006 original version of the full book with multiple readers. There is no indication on that page that other versions are available. Neither does it mention the Dramatic Reading or the Abridged versions.

Searches on the Internet. I searched for "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland free audiobook" in Google and Bing. Both searches produced the original 2006 version near the top of search results. The Google search provided the Kara Shallenberg Version 2 as an Internet Archive audiobook, and Version 3 as a Librivox book in the 14th position.

How do people find the different versions? There are numerous 'Backlinks' from other websites to these pages. This probably accounts for a large portion of traffic to all the versions. Also, carrying out a title search either in Librivox or the Internet Archive Librivox page will turn up all versions of the titles. However, the most important source of views for popular classic books seem to be other websites that provide Librivox recordings. See "Search Engine Results" under "Pride and Prejudice" below for details.


User Traffic on the Different Versions
Internet Archive provides the number of total views on each book page. I used that number in the table below. Librivox also has a page for each of these versions that you can use for listening, but Librivox does not provide any information about traffic volume on its pages.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Total Page Views, as of February 2024
Version Year Internet Archive page

Original Full Book 2006 22.6 Million
Full Book Version 2 2010 4.9 Million
Full Book Version 3 2007 1.7 Million
Full Book Version 4 2010 889,000
Full Book Version 5 Missing
Full Book Version 6 2019 244,000
Full Book Version 7 2020 156,000
Full Book Version 8 2021 123,000
Abridged Original 2007 468,000
Abridged Version 2 2012 124,000
Abridged Version 3 2013 770,000
Dramatic Reading 2011 2 Million


"Pride and Prejudice", by Jane Austen, is another popular classic book on Librivox, with multiple versions. Here is the traffic for different versions.

Pride and Prejudice
Total Page Views, as of February 2024
Version Year Internet Archive page

Original 2006 9.6 Million
Version 2 2006 5.8 Million
Version 3 2007 6.9 Million
Version 4 2010 4.8 Million
Version 5 2011 640,000
Version 6 (Dramatic) 2011 484,000

Search Engine Results:

A Google search for the term "pride and prejudice free audiobook" showed:

1st position, a YouTube 'video' of "Pride and Prejudice (Librivox version 3) at the site Greatest Audiobooks.com.
Also near the top was a YouTube video from Audiobooks.com that was Librivox version 4.
The 3rd entry was for Audiobook Treasury.com, which was Librivox version 3.
The next search result was for Open Culture.com, which provided links to audiobooks at Spotify and Librivox.
Next entry was Librivox, with a link to the version 3 recording.
Next entry was for an Outstanding AudioBooks.com youtube video; Librivox version 3.
Two positions after that was a YouTube video for Librivox version 3.
Next position is Learn Out Loud.com, featuring the Librivox version 3.

A Bing search for "pride and prejudice free audiobook" had results similar to Google's, with a number of commercial sites featuring the Librivox recordings, plus the Librivox and Internet Archive sites.

Conclusion: I wondered how these classic books, and their different versions, could get hundreds of thousands or even millions of page views. The biggest reason seems to be that a number of commercial websites feature Librivox recordings of classic books, sometimes choosing to use different versions.


Please also see my other posts on this subject, here on the "Suggestions, Comments, News & Discussion" forum.

Ted Lienhart
TedL

How Often are Librivox Books Listened To?

[Winnifred]

That is interesting and confirms the value of multiple versions. Looks like YouTube visibility can really help.

Thanks!

[annise]

With all these more recent, and presumably improved, versions of the book, I tried to see to what extent audience traffic has shifted to the newer versions.

I would strongly disagree with that statement - the version is based on the time it entered the catalogue. If someone wants to read the umpteenth version they can. Just if they want to read a book that only 1 person ever listens to they can.
LibriVox is not a popularity contest.
And we have no idea how various sites count things. They mostly only count hits, it doesn't mean any of the "hits" turned into a listen.

Anne

[TedL]

Discussion of this subject continued on the thread "How Often are Librivox Books Listened To?".