Audible is Helping Authors Find and Grow Loyal Fanbases
When Canadian computer programmer Dennis E. Taylor accepted a dare from his wife to try and write a sci-fi novel, he didn’t expect to complete it or make much more than pocket change, let alone have the book become a bestseller. Taylor released Outland through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing, and it was so successful it led to a publishing deal with Audible for his next book, We Are Legion (We Are Bob). The unique, imaginative and witty Audible Original featured a main character named Bob and starred Ray Porter (Justice League) as the voice of the “Bobiverse.”
Taylor’s writing and Porter’s pitch-perfect narration proved to be a magical combination. We Are Legion (We Are Bob) became an instant success, captivating fans all over the world, and our editors named it Audible’s Best Science Fiction Audiobook of 2016. As his subsequent books continued to become bestsellers on Audible, Taylor quit his day job to focus solely on his burgeoning career as an “audio first” sci-fi writer.
Like Taylor, more and more creators are finding and growing devoted fanbases by working with Audible. According to Aurelie De Troyer, Audible’s Head of Regional Content for Europe, in just the last five years, Audible has worked with more than one million authors, creators and narrators worldwide to produce listens that resonate deeply with audiences, including our Audible Originals. “We’ve been at the forefront of the audiobook industry for 25 years, helping to fuel its exponential growth, and we do that with investment in creative communities,” she said at Germany’s Frankfurt Book Fair in October. “We have a strong track record of building authors globally,” with listeners in over 180 countries and content in more than 50 languages. Creators find multiple pathways to success with Audible, such as our indie audiobook publishing service, ACX, and through our dedicated teams working worldwide to commission content at the local level.
One such commissioned creator joined De Troyer on the panel: Richard Armitage, the award-winning actor, beloved audiobook narrator, and now bestselling author of audio-first titles Geneva and The Cut. “It was quite a shock when Audible invited me to write an original crime thriller with a role for myself to perform,” Armitage said to the Frankfurt audience. “I understood the assignment, because they were connecting an audience of listeners who had followed me both as an actor and a narrator.” For Armitage, the switch to writing audio-first books was natural because he saw it as another way to perform, and he described pacing around and acting out the scenes as he conceived them. “It had to be written for what it sounded like.”
UK-based romance author Leeanne Slade was also on the panel and reported coming to audio-first writing differently. Her debut, The Rebound, was written for print, but when it was optioned by Audible and performed by Claudia Jessie (Bridgerton, Line of Duty), Slade knew she’d found her medium. She wrote her next two books exclusively for Audible, where they became bestsellers: Told You So, performed by Bel Powley (The Morning Show, The Diary of a Teenage Girl) and The Glitch, performed by Daisy Edgar Jones (Normal People, Twisters) and Sam Claflin (Hunger Games, Daisy Jones and the Six). Slade told the Frankfurt audience, “Hearing them bring those characters to life was just phenomenal, and so many reviewers say they feel like they know the characters.”
She continued, “As a debut author, it’s incredibly difficult to break through,” because romance is “a hugely competitive market. Working with Audible has opened me up to a hungry, broader audience I may not have otherwise found. One of my most common reviews is ‘I don’t read romance, but…,’ and I think that’s a testament to the trust listeners have with Audible.”
Canadian romance author Lily Chu has heard something similar from her fans on Audible. Chu had been trying to get a novel published for years, then in 2020, she started thinking seriously about how to bring more biracial representation to the rom-com genre. The resulting novel, The Stand-In, was acquired by Audible in an auction between eight publishers—a rare feat for a debut rom-com author. Says Chu, “I think Audible choosing the perfect narrator in Phillipa Soo (Hamilton) brought in a ton of listeners who might not have listened to romance before.” And with the help of passionate promotion by our editorial and marketing teams, The Stand-In quickly became a bestseller, staying for weeks at the number one position in the romance category on Audible.
“The experience publishing with Audible, the quality of the books, and the amazing listener feedback made me decide that I wanted to work with them for the next set of books as well,” Chu says. Like Taylor and Slade, she wrote her next novels, The Takedown, Drop Dead and The Comeback, as audio-first titles for Audible. As an added bonus, Chu gets to hear from listeners who tell her the books made long road trips and chores less tedious, or helped them relax after a hard day. "I love that my books can provide people with an escape for a few hours,” she says.
Although Taylor publishes his Bobiverse titles in other formats, audio has always been the franchise’s natural home and where Taylor and his writing have truly thrived. Encouraged by the success of the series, Taylor and Audible have produced a number of popular standalone Originals, and We Are Legion has been optioned by Lord Miller Productions/Universal. At Frankfurt, Slade reported “some exciting things” were in the works for her Originals, as well. In fact, Audible has a dedicated global team working to package and sell Originals for adaptation to TV and film, which opens up creators to even more audiences.
As Taylor considers why his books have taken off so exponentially in audio, it comes back to the added dimension of performance: “It’s the narrators. Many of my fans have said they’ll grab a Ray Porter book without even reading the blurb. Audible provides a connection for readers that you can’t get from books.”
