Chances are, you’ve heard Julia Whelan’s voice. She’s the award-winning narrator behind more than 600 audiobooks by a long list of bestselling authors including Taylor Jenkins Reid,Emily Henry, Michael Crichton, V.E. Schwab and Kristin Hannah. She’s also narrated long-form articles for The New Yorker, The Atlantic and Vanity Fair.
You may have read her own writing, too. Whelan’s first novel, 2018’s “My Oxford Year,” 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.
“I was like, ‘Nothing has ever wanted to be a book more. Please let me do this,’” she recalls. It ended up an international bestseller. Her second novel, 2022’s “Thank You For Listening,” was critically praised. (“Thank You For Listening” is about a former actor-turned-audiobook narrator who falls in love with another audiobook narrator.)
You may have even seen Whelan on TV — she began her career as a child actor, with roles in “Fifteen and Pregnant” and on the series “Once and Again.” Despite her various pursuits, though, she has no plans to leave narration behind. “I feel like I was born to do it,” she said. “It’s everything that I love and that I’m good at and everything I want to be doing.”
That’s 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’s desire to multitask. Despite the appetite for audiobooks, for narrators, “the financial aspect makes zero sense,” says Whelan. She’s founded her own publishing company, Audiobrary, to help narrators get paid more fairly.
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.
WHELAN: The only reason I was doing 70 books a year was because that’s how many books you have to do when you’re 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’t get royalties. As we’ve seen the industry grow and as we’ve seen the cache of certain narrators expand, and we know listeners will seek out audiobooks that their favorite narrators record. It doesn’t 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’t 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’re not giving 50-75% of that sale to a retailer. You’re giving it directly to the people who made the product.
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.
WHELAN: It ruins everything. I’m probably the only person left who wears a mask on a plane at this point, but everything falls apart if I get sick. You’re messed up for three or four months. Everything just gets delayed, especially when I was doing 70 books a year, there’s no room for error there.
WHELAN: At this point, there’s still enough work to go around and they are doing the books that have the budget frankly to use them. But I think that audiobook fans — not your casual audiobook user, but fans — have favorite narrators and they’re going to look for books by those narrators. So, in stunt-casting situations, sometimes someone is incredible at it, and they are perfect for the book. But sometimes it feels like a very craven, just marketing ploy. I don’t feel infringed upon by them, but I do worry about a future situation where most of the work is going to AI. I don’t lie awake at night worried, but everyone’s threatened right now. It’s very, very hard to even begin to predict what the future could look like.
WHELAN: I think the kids would say that it’s ableist to say that if you didn’t read a book with your eyeballs, then you didn’t read it, considering many people have many limitations that would prevent them from physically reading a book. So then are you telling them they’ve never read a book before? Actual data and studies show that listening to a book actually triggers the same response in the brain as reading it, and that the interpretation and understanding of that book is on par with having read it.
WHELAN: There’s been about four ideas that are constantly in rotation, but I think I’ve narrowed it down. I think I’m ready to at least start exploring one of them at the beginning of next year.
WHELAN: I very much think we could. I have said no up to this point because, this time around, I want to be very creatively involved. There’s just too many things about audiobooks that someone could get wrong not knowing anything about the industry. I want be involved so I’m willing to hold onto it until the right situation comes along.
