With the development of portable cassette recorders, audiotapes had become very popular and by the late 1960s libraries became a source of free audiobooks, primarily on vinyl records but also on cassettes. Instructional and educational recordings came first, followed by self-help tapes and then by literature.

 

In 1975, Olympic gold medalist, Duvall Hecht founded Books on Tape, Inc. as a direct to consumer mail order rental service for unabridged audiobooks and expanded their services selling their products to libraries and audiobooks gaining popularity with commuters and travelers. By the middle of 1980s the audio publishing business grew to several billion dollars a year in retail value.

 

Caedmon was the first to work with integrated production teams and professional actors, while Nightingale Conant featured business and self-help authors reading their own works first on vinyl records and then on cassettes.