Bringing out new audio books

I would LOVE to have everything I write in audio, but… cost is the big stumbling block.
If I’m going to do it, I want to do it right. That means a great narrator.

I’ve been very lucky to be given awesome performances – Kaleo Griffith doing Into Deep Waters, ageing the character voices so perfectly from 18 in WWII to 88 in New Jersey; Gomez Pugh giving John, in The Rebuilding Year, the right warmth and depth; JF Harding turning Mac’s difficulties in the Life Lessons series into an emotional triumph.

Our genre is blessed with many incredible voice actors and their producers, and they are entirely worth the salary they command, (which can run $2000 to $5000 up front per book) but it’s still a lot of money to spend, in a gamble of what will sell to listeners, and make that money back from the royalties we get.

There are, of course, alternatives.

The IMO unacceptable option that Amazon keeps trying to push on us is AI narration. Not only is the end product a huge step down from what a talented narrator can do, but in my opinion, AI narration is as unethical as AI covers or AI writing or AI translation. Each of those uses generative AI trained on illegally-obtained material, to then replace the human talent that produced those training materials. Each of them also gives our loyal readers a sub-par experience.

So despite Amazon making those authors who use their AI Virtual Voice special deals – like the right to price their own books, which we have been begging for with human narration for years – nothing would induce me to go that route. (BTW, you can filter out AI narration in your Audible searches by adding a minus to indicate not this : “-virtual_voice” to the search.)

There is also royalty-share. In this model, the narrator takes on the risk, by doing the narration up front, for no down-payment, or a partial down-payment. They then receive half of the author royalties for the next 7 years, in the hope of making back that investment of their time and talent. There are some wonderful narrators who do this, although the top voices in the genre are busy enough they don’t have to gamble their income and time in this way. And you are locked in together for 7 years, which is a long time in this business.

Then there are publishers like Tantor Media, which obtain the audio rights to a book from the author or via an agent, create the audio with their contracted narrators, and pay the author royalties. This takes the cost but also the control out of the author’s hands, but can be a very viable option. If you’re not a control freak like me. 🙂

Cost has been the main reason I only have eight of my 70 or so books in audio… well, nine now.

Because just as I was thinking I could afford a new audio book, I heard that JF Harding was looking for a project on the lighter side, with less angst. And while he does angst so well, I could imagine how fun this would be.

And I happened to have Transparent Is a Color as a stand-alone novel. (Which meant I wasn’t committing to a series.)

JF Harding took my most lighthearted book, and gave it a great voice performance, now available on Amazon, Audible, and Apple. I hope readers will have fun listening to him create Perry, Deckard, Boomerang, and the bomb disposal team, adding a new dimension to my story of opposites-attract, age-gap, subpar superhero adventure.

I’m always amazed by how a great narrator adds color and nuance, and with how well JF Harding recognizes what I was trying to do with my words. I hope listeners will enjoy it too.

And as for more audio in the future? I sure hope so. We’ll see how Transparent Is a Color goes over with listeners in the next few months. But regardless, I love having a new entry in the fast-growing category of audiobooks.

– Kaje Harper

July 2025