Many people have asked about an audiobook version of Theft of Fire, and I really want this to happen. I want readers to be able to enjoy my work in whatever form they most prefer.
There are, however, some snags in the audiobook industry that are not present in print.
They don't make an audiobook impossible, but they do require some work to surmount. I'll explain.
The biggest obstacle is Audible. It has a large enough market share to be effectively considered a monopoly.
Now, this is true of Amazon as a book seller as well (95% of my sales are on Amazon), but that's not really too much of a problem, because Amazon as a business partner is actually pretty reasonable. They take a fixed percentage of each sale, and that percentage isn't too bad for providing a worldwide fire-and-forget retail platform with reviews, print-on-demand, and even free advertising if you perform well enough.
No, I have no major complaints about Amazon.
Audible... different story.
Audible, while owned by Amazon, has an entirely different corporate culture — a very toxic and exploitive one. It simply doesn't seem to have its collective mind wrapped around the idea that authors should get paid.
First of all, it wants exclusivity. Not content simply with market dominance, it engages in the anticompetitive, anticapitalist practice of demanding you sell on no other platform. Not even your own website. Were I to take this deal, Audible could sue me for selling copies of my own Audiobook on USB credit card.
And, for that consideration, Audible offers the "concession" of taking MERELY twice the percentage that Amazon takes for a booksale, for providing the exact same service.
Yes, that's right. Don't clean your reading glasses. Don't bother reading it again, you read it right.
Amazon sells an ebook, takes X% of the proceeds, you get the rest, and that's it.
Audible sells an audiobook, takes 2X%, and sues you if you sell it anywhere else.
In each case, it's a simple digital download, using the exact same infrastructure. But the deal is different, because fuck you.
And if you don't want to be exclusive? Well, that percentage Audible takes goes to "nearly all". And what's more, Audible is well-known among authors for funny business with their accounting, using various mechanisms like encouraging readers to "return" finished books, then raking back 100% of the proceeds from the author.
So, my choices are kneel and kiss the ring, and get paid a pittance, maintain some small independence and get paid essentially nothing, or shun Audible and make 1/10 the sales, if lucky.
Well, every sale is a net positive, so making less, while it would smart, especially where I'm competing with myself, isn't the end of the world.
Problem is, I'm just not a ring-kisser. If I were, I'd be sucking up to super-rich commies, instead of calling them out for the commie scum they are.
I simply can't stomach taking a deal that treats me like a serf. Full stop. It's insulting.
So, the first challenge is finding alternate distribution channels that actually work.
The second issue is producing the thing. Part of the challenge here is my own perfectionism. Those who have read the print version can see that I have spared no effort to provide a quality experience, from the writing to the proofreading to the layout. Not easy when it's one guy and his two wives in a little suburban home trying to do the work of the multibilliondollar publishing industry, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
So AI voices just won't do. Nor will amateurish acting. If I'm doing this, I'm doing it right. One quality male voice actor for the POV character, with a female supporting actress to provide dialogue for the other main characters, both of whom are female. Which means editing stuff together.
Not cheap, but my care for my work, and the experience of my readers, simply demands it. I despise the trend of most indy books being shovelware, and I am determined to defy it, both for my own sake and because I believe in independent publishing and wish to help legitimize it.
And yes, I have rejected publishers who came to me because they were not open to doing "dual-cast" audio.
That, of course, costs money, quite a bit more than your standard close-enough-for-government-work job. I'm willing to invest that if I can raise it or scrape it together, but it is a complication.
So, here's where we stand right now:
1. We are working on finding distribution channels that allow us to sell at a reasonable price without compromising our independence.
2. We are working on developing a Kickstarter to help us fund the project.
3. We are in talks with the agents of some voice talent we believe would be appropriate. This is an ongoing process and we are open to more options.
So, in short, we're working on it. The process is convoluted, and we must ask for your patience, but we will get there.
We are also open to suggestions for appropriate voice talent, if you have someone you are particularly a fan of, or are such a person yourself. Contact my wife @acrobatichobbit (not me, I don't run the business end) for further details.
As always, thank you for all your amazing support. Really. This is unheard of for debut author, and I'm starting to hope that I might actually be able to make a career of this. Nothing could make me happier.
Thank you.