One of the fun things about getting rights back to my pro publishing books is the chance to finally put Life Lessons into audio. I’ve been looking forward to that.

It’s a bit of a tricky time to do this project, though. Profits on audio books – including my own – are down recently. I don’t know whether that’s because of how many good books are becoming available to choose from, or the Amazon policy encouraging “exchange” returns of audio, even after a full listen, or the chosen whispersync prices, or the rampant You Tube piracy of audio (authors have found their pirated books with thousands of views, when they’ve sold only hundreds).

It does make the prospect a bit more daunting. In the past, I paid up front to get the narrator I really wanted. (Gomez Pugh for The Rebuilding Year, Kaleo Griffith who did such an outstanding job on the challenge of Into Deep Waters.) But the top guys command a rightfully high price for their work, so that’s an investment of thousands of dollars.

They also, of course, bring with them an audience who will pick up a new title or unknown author in trust that the right narrator will do a great job.

So I’m juggling the questions of who can do a nice deep voice for Mac, who brings the right balance of drama but not melodrama to mystery narration, who is well known and beloved to M/M fans, and whom I can afford. On the plus side, I have been listening to snippets from a bunch of good narrators. (On the minus side for my budget, I want to buy all the books…)

Anyway, that’s my next project, alongside the rerelease of my Hidden Wolves. (With gorgeous new covers from Jay Aheer – I can’t wait to reveal the one for Unexpected Demands, hopefully tomorrow.)

If you have a narrator you think does a good job with mysteries, especially one who isn’t on the usual top-ten-M/M-narrators list, I’d love to hear about them.

Keep warm, everyone, stay safe, and enjoy the great books coming out these days. (I just topped up with new stuff from Lisa Henry, Eden Winters, Jordan Castillo Price, AJ Demas, and more.)

– Kaje Harper

Feb 2021