Malcolm Gladwell: Audio Pioneer

When Malcolm Gladwell launched his podcast, Revisionist History, in 2016, it immediately became one of the most popular & critically acclaimed podcasts. Since then, he’s moved further into the audio space with the launch of Pushkin Industries, which he co-founded in 2018.

While I’ve been a fan of Malcom and the podcasts that Pushkin has produced, what caught my eyes (or, ears) this week was the release of his latest book, Talking to Strangers. Malcom writing a book is nothing new, of course, but how he is approaching the audiobook version, is certainly new.

To take a step back, one of the questions I get most is: How do Audiobooks and Podcasts go together? Or do they? From recent studies, roughly half of Americans claim to have listened to a podcast and about the same have listened to an audiobook. However, I don’t think the overlap of those are as high as you may think. The experience of listening to the two are quite different. We also know that audiobooks are already a multi-billion dollar industry, where podcasts generate significantly less in ad-revenue.

Now, what makes Talking to Strangers interesting is that Gladwell doesn’t simply read the book for the audiobook version. Instead, he treats the audiobook like it’s own piece of content — really, creating a long-form podcast more than an audiobook. He uses soundbites, interviews and even licensed music from Janelle Monáe, to create a much richer experience — which makes sense. If you were to take his book and, say, turn it into a movie, you would turn the book into a screenplay and adapt for film. Why wouldn’t you do the same for audio(books)?

This is the kind of innovation that the two mediums need. While this may not bridge podcasting and audiobooks, it does present an opportunity for the audiobook world to adopt some of the things that make podcasting so great and make it more appealing, rather than just reading a book word for word. We think Malcolm put it best:

“If you’re writing a book or writing an audiobook, you’re competing with podcasts, with talk radio, with all these other things. You better be able to measure up if you’re competing in that space. There’s just no reason to read a book into a microphone and call it a day.”

Bravo, Malcolm and Pushkin. Keep innovating.