Chances are, you\u2019ve heard Julia Whelan\u2019s voice. She\u2019s the award-winning narrator behind more than 600 audiobooks by a long list\u2026<\/p>\n
Chances are, you\u2019ve heard Julia Whelan\u2019s voice. She\u2019s the award-winning narrator behind more than 600 audiobooks by a long list of bestselling authors including Taylor Jenkins Reid,<\/a>Emily Henry,<\/a> Michael Crichton, V.E. Schwab and Kristin Hannah. She\u2019s also narrated long-form articles for The New Yorker, The Atlantic and Vanity Fair.<\/p>\n You may have read her own writing, too. Whelan\u2019s first novel, 2018\u2019s \u201cMy Oxford Year,\u201d has been adapted to a Netflix film, out Friday, starring Sofia Carson. The story actually began as a screenplay by Allison Burnett and had been gestating in development for years. Whelan was brought in to help with the script because she had studied abroad at Oxford her junior year of college. Producers then asked if she thought it would make a good book. <\/p>\n \u201cI was like, \u2018Nothing has ever wanted to be a book more. Please let me do this,\u2019\u201d she recalls. It ended up an international bestseller. Her second novel, 2022\u2019s \u201cThank You For Listening,\u201d was critically praised. (\u201cThank You For Listening\u201d is about a former actor-turned-audiobook narrator who falls in love with another audiobook narrator.) <\/p>\n You may have even seen Whelan on TV \u2014 she began her career as a child actor, with roles in \u201cFifteen and Pregnant\u201d and on the series \u201cOnce and Again.\u201d Despite her various pursuits, though, she has no plans to leave narration behind. \u201cI feel like I was born to do it,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s everything that I love and that I\u2019m good at and everything I want to be doing.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s a good thing, because the audiobook industry is growing. Statista projects this year it will reach $9.84 billion because of smartphones, the increased popularity of audio content and people\u2019s desire to multitask. Despite the appetite for audiobooks, for narrators, \u201cthe financial aspect makes zero sense,\u201d says Whelan. She\u2019s founded her own publishing company, Audiobrary, to help narrators get paid more fairly.<\/p>\n Whelan, who has narrated as many as 70 books in one year, spoke to The Associated Press about the audiobook industry, Audiobrary and her own writing. Answers are edited for clarity and brevity.<\/p>\n AP: Why did you start your own audiobook publishing company?<\/p>\n WHELAN: The only reason I was doing 70 books a year was because that\u2019s how many books you have to do when you\u2019re first starting out to keep your head above water because the rates are low. It would be OK if there were a kickback for success, but narrators don\u2019t get royalties. As we\u2019ve seen the industry grow and as we\u2019ve seen the cache of certain narrators expand, and we know listeners will seek out audiobooks that their favorite narrators record. It doesn\u2019t make sense to me that we should be cut out of the long-term financial benefit of success. Audiobrary does a profit-share model with writers, who I also feel don\u2019t get enough percentage of the pie, and a royalty share for narrators. We are also a direct-to-consumer retail channel, so when you buy directly from us, you\u2019re not giving 50-75% of that sale to a retailer. You\u2019re giving it directly to the people who made the product.<\/p>\n AP: How do you prepare before narrating?<\/p>\n WHELAN: I create character lists. I create pronunciation lists, and I do the necessary research for that. The prep time can vary book to book significantly, depending on how complicated the book is. <\/p>\n AP: If you feel a cold coming on, do you panic? Do you have to protect your voice?<\/p>\n WHELAN: It ruins everything. I\u2019m probably the only person left who wears a mask on a plane at this point, but everything falls apart if I get sick. You\u2019re messed up for three or four months. Everything just gets delayed, especially when I was doing 70 books a year, there\u2019s no room for error there.<\/p>\n AP: There are big-name celebrities who narrate audiobooks. Do you worry about them taking jobs? <\/p>\n