AkooBooks Audio CEO Ama Dadson on African Audiobook Market

Ama Dadson launched AkooBooks Audio in Ghana in 2017. Her motivation was personal: her mother, a children's author, lost her sight, highlighting a lack of accessible African stories in audio format.

Dadson, also the 2026 Frankfurter Buchmesse Audio Ambassador, spoke with Publishing Perspectives. She explained that the African audiobook market is still developing. The response in Ghana has been encouraging, but her company is creating a market rather than entering an established one.

Building a Sustainable Ecosystem

Audiobook listening is relatively new in Africa. Discovery, affordability, mobile access, and awareness are critical. Dadson noted that people who may not consider themselves traditional book buyers are embracing books through their phones.

The market will not develop by simply copying established models. Mobile-first access, local payment systems, pricing, data costs, and institutional channels like schools and libraries all matter. Part of AkooBooks' work involves figuring out what a sustainable African digital publishing ecosystem can look like. They have expanded into ebooks to make African books accessible in multiple digital formats.

Content Trends and Regional Circulation

Dadson emphasized there is no single "African market." Audiences want a wide range of content. This includes fiction, thrillers, romance, biographies, history, business, children's and young adult books, and books in African languages. Relevance and authenticity are consistently important.

A growing trend is interest in African stories traveling across formats, languages, and borders. At the recent Mashariki Creative Economy Expo 2026 in Dar es Salaam, discussions focused on trading literary rights. The goal is to see African books move into audio and digital formats, into languages like English and Kiswahili, and into markets beyond their countries of origin.

"A Kiswahili novel, for example, might have a life as a Kiswahili audiobook, an English translation, and then an English audiobook," Dadson said. Digital distribution offers an opportunity to think regionally and pan-African, while respecting differences in language and culture. Getting African books to travel more effectively within Africa itself is an equally important opportunity as taking them to the world.

Local Production and Technology

AkooBooks strongly believes in local production and African creative talent. They work with professional narrators, actors, authors, studios, and audio engineers to ensure authentic voice, pronunciation, and cultural context.

Dadson now thinks of "local"in a pan-African sense. As the company acquires stories from other African markets, it needs the right voices, languages, and production partnerships there too."I think the important distinction is between using AI to replace creativity and using AI to remove friction from the creative process," Dadson stated. For African audio, where production economics can be challenging, this distinction matters enormously. The goal is to use technology to produce more African stories in more languages while preserving human performance and cultural authenticity.

The Role of Audio Ambassador

As the 2026 Audio Ambassador for Frankfurter Buchmesse, Dadson aims to bring perspectives from developing audio markets into international conversations. She is particularly interested in representing markets like Africa, where the ecosystem develops under different conditions.

Her role involves connecting publishers, platforms, producers, and rights holders across markets. She bridges conversations between the global audio business and African publishing hubs like Accra, Dar es Salaam, Nairobi, and Kampala. The future of African audio is about creating an ecosystem where African intellectual property can travel between countries, languages, formats, and audiences.

Future Market Growth

Dadson believes the global audiobook market will continue to grow. Some of the most interesting future growth will come from places currently described as emerging markets. Smartphone adoption, changing habits, streaming, digital payments, and better distribution are lowering barriers.

AI and other production technologies may help reduce the cost and time required to produce audiobooks. However, Dadson thinks rights and languages will be equally important for fueling growth. The opportunity is to ensure African intellectual property participates fully in the global ecosystem while circulating more effectively within Africa itself.