by Mary Jo
Audiobooks!
Those of you who have been following me here know that I've had a slow but ongoing program to get more of my stories into audio format. The main reason is because a fair number of people really like audio books.
They're great for those with commutes, or who want the distraction of stories while gardening or doing housework or other mundane tasks. They're also a real boon for those with vision problems. (My mother listened to a lot of audiobooks from the National Library of the Blind in her later years.)
Audio Page:
A new step in my program is creating an audio page on my website so those who are interested can find all of my available audio editions listed in one place. The page been a complicated project, and it's a work in progress. New works and links and samples will be added as they become available.
I'm fortunate in that all of my books released in the last twenty years have had excellent audio versions produced by the publishers, a tradition that my current publisher, Kensington, is continuing. All are still available, and most, though not all, have been produced by Recorded Books.
But any books done before The Wild Child were not available in audio, so I've been slowly working to produce audio editions of my backlist. I've now done ten independent productions; I was particularly pleased last year when the seventh and last of my Fallen Angels Series became available.
Producing my own backlist audio has gone slowly because it's expensive and time consuming for a variety of reasons, but progress is being made. I love working with my English narrator, Siobhan Waring, and we have a verbal agreement for recording the three books in my Silk Trilogy in 2020. (She is in demand, so advance scheduling is necessary.)
I also decided to do audio versions of some novellas. Cheaper to produce because they're shorter, so cheaper to sell. Win/win! The first of those, The Christmas Cuckoo, came out before this past Christmas and has been much enjoyed.
My second audio novella is The Black Beast of Belleterre, a Beauty and the Beast Christmas story, one of the most popular I've written. I started with an e-book version which has done well. The audio version has been recorded for a couple of months, but projects take a long time to go through the vetting and uploading process at Amazon and Audible.com.
Other platforms work more quickly. If you want to hear The Black Beast now, it's available directly from the distributor, Findaway Voices. You'll need to download their Authors Direct app, but that's a simple business. It's also available at Kobo and Apple Books Audio.
Worldwide?
In other audio news, I've been trying to expand the distribution territories for some of my older books that had limited availability. One audio publisher has already agreed to expand distribution for the book of mine they produced, though it will probably take time to go live so I won’t mention it here. I hope more audiobooks will become more widely available in the upcoming months.
If you're one of the audiobook lovers here, have patience! I'm doing my best to make more stories more available worldwide!
Are you an audiobook fan? Tell me more!
Mary Jo