Romantasy passes thrillers as library audio pulls ahead of ebooks

Romantasy, a blend of romance and fantasy, has overtaken thrillers as the most borrowed audiobook genre in libraries.

Heather McCormack, director of digital content at OCLC CloudLibrary, a platform that supplies ebooks and audiobooks to library services, shared the genre shift on Thursday 8 October during “What’s Next for the Digital Library Market” at the Frankfurt Book Fair, according to reporting by Publishers Marketplace. The panel brought together three speakers who work between publishers and libraries, dealing with licensing, supply and borrowing data.

McCormack said audiobooks began to outperform ebooks in library circulation, meaning the number of checkouts by borrowers, two years ago. The gap opened in 2024. Listening has stayed ahead since.

Romantasy now leads audio listening. Thrillers, long the staple of commute and holiday borrowing, sit behind it. Horror is also growing as an audio genre, McCormack said.

The discussion also touched on how libraries pay for digital books. The standard model across publishing allows 26 lends of an ebook or audiobook before the library must buy the title again. Each lend covers one borrower at a time, much like a physical copy taken from a shelf and returned.

For regular borrowers, this means the library catalogue is shaped by two forces at once. Tastes decide what gets requested. Lending terms decide how long a copy lasts.

The Frankfurt session focused on that balance. Publishers license titles for a set number of loans. Libraries manage demand within those limits. Data on circulation and genre helps both sides decide what to keep available.