I like that it has become a compound word. We readers/listeners of audiobooks have long known that the experience is not merely an audio form of the book. It becomes a blend of the story written by the author and the performance of the narrator. Even Audible finally acknowledged that in their raitings system by having an overall rating plus separate ratings for the performance and story. I often rate the overall product differently than the average of the two performance/story ratings would produce. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts; although sometimes it's less. ;P
a) audio book
or
b) audiobook
I've wondered about this for some time now. Any wordsmiths out there that could answer this definitively? Or do we have to take a vote?
:-)