Notes from Deanna's Desk | Deanna's World

I don’t know where October went because one minute I thought I was getting on top of things, and the next minute I was drowning in work and October turned into November.

Do you remember when we were kids and we wanted the days to go faster and we couldn’t wait to grow up? What a rort that is!

Now I need life to slow the heck down. So here’s to another Notes from Deanna’s Desk. This one is short—for me, but it focuses on a very important and often debated topic.

Audiobooks.

Is it reading? Is it not?

Human or robot? Et cetera, et cetera…

But before we get into that—

A Mini Update to the ARC Team. I Have No Excuse…

I expect at this point my ARC team are shaking their heads at me, but what can I say? I have zero excuse and fully acknowledge that life and work have gotten the better of me this year and I’m hoping for a full reset in 2027. There’s no point even trying now.

I’ve got two weeks left in the year of dedicated work, but that involves two more covers to design, a full line edit of a 65,000 word book which will probably land at 70,000 words, and one more book for full production that’s going live which includes custom retailer paperback cover, website update, promo graphics, and all the things associated with a book release.

So while there are ARCs coming from my authors, they are all scheduled for 2027 since 2026 has been both insane and traumatic. I figured out that we lost five months to Hubby’s health issues, while I was juggling the production of about 80 book, audiobook, and translation releases.

I’m not telling you this to make excuses for myself, but to say I do hold myself accountable as I value the ARC team. At the same time, I do still need to prioritse author work as a publishing partner because that’s the day job, and I like to eat and Hubby likes getting fed. The day job puts food in the fridge.

I’m also not going to make promises I cannot keep. I mean, look what life has thrown at me this year!! Oof.

I sincerely hope you understand—both the ARC team and the authors who have submitted their books for review. I’m way behind on responding to their emails and requests too. Argh!

The Meat of the Notes are Robots

As mentioned before, today I want to talk about audiobooks. Or rather, I did on my Substack and I’m sharing them here as well.

When it comes to audiobooks—well, when it comes to everything, really—people all have opinions. And so do I. I’ve also written about the audiobook boom and authors making the right audio choices for their books. Those were over a year ago, so much has changed since then. Yet much as stayed the same. Most of all, the vitriolic nature of humans.

Us humans and our opinions, right?

So here’s the latest on what I have to say about audiobooks and audiobook narration.

And in case you're wondering, yes, audiobooks DO count as reading. That's where I stand on that point.

Bold heart divider

7 November 2026

This note does not need much of an intro since much of it I get right into. It’s a long note, so hang tight. My long time readers know I have a tendency to be wordy...

The original Note is here, if you want to see the pretty pictures of the audiobook covers I recced.

I've been holding off saying anything on this topic for quite a while now, but I was chatting with one of my bookish besties, recommended a book to her, and stuff ensued. No, no, don't worry. There's no major drama that's going to stop the internet. We're way too boring and sensible like that.

But here's the thing—

A few weeks ago, a post popped up in my Substack feed with a meme about digitally narrated books, and the caption read something like "friends don't let friends listen to robots read their books to them." And the comment section was all "ew...", "gross!", and "bye-bye robot narrator, you can't sit with us."

That triggered some dark and angry in me, and I'm human enough to admit it. But because I was away on my mini break, I let myself get over it after having a good vent sesh with Hubby.

Let me explain why I got angry...

My mother-in-law is blind.

This means she cannot read or see anything with her eyeballs. It's a condition called macular degeneration which developed in adulthood, and it affects anywhere between 2% to 15% of the adult population depending on your genetics, susceptibility, how early you get it treated, etc.

This also means that the only way she can read books is via audio. And the only way that she can read the books her son, Hubby, has written is via audio.

Audiobooks are expensive to produce. A standard audiobook when you hire a human narrator is anywhere upwards of $3,000. With the trend towards dual narrators for some books, it goes upwards of $5,000. Then you have duet audiobooks, where male characters are voiced by male narrators and female characters by female narrators, with no cross-gender narration. You're looking at upwards of $10,000 for those. And with the current popularity of full cast narrations and cinematic productions like GraphicAudio (which I adore), the cost to produce jumps to over $50,000.

How do I know this, you ask? Because I'm a publishing partner and it's my job. And I've produced enough short story audiobooks to know what's involved—enough to say it's not a part of the publishing process I want to take on. It's a very specialised skill, from narrating to sound engineering to actual production.

And did you know that Audible’s star-studded, full-cast production of Bram Stoker’s Dracula—headlined by Jonathan Bailey—cost an estimated $150,000 to $250,000 to produce for just six hours of audio? Between A-list talent, full ensemble voice actors, an original musical score, custom sound design, specialized sound effect artists, spatial audio engineering, production, packaging, and advertising, you're looking at tens of thousands of dollars per finished hour.

Of course, this is an educated guesstimate because I work in the industry, but I think my math is pretty solid—and I could easily be underestimating it. It’s an incredible piece of audio theater, but expecting everyday indie authors to compete with that kind of capital just to make their stories accessible to listeners is completely disconnected from the reality of an indie author's bank account up against a corporate giant like Audible.

One commenter mentioned they view audiobooks strictly as a performance and want top-tier production for their entertainment. And look, I love great audio theater as much as anyone—thank you, hyperphantasia. But when we treat audiobooks exclusively as high-end performance art, we forget that for visually impaired readers, listening isn't an elective luxury—it's functional literacy. It's how stories, news, and education meet them in daily life.

So from an accessibility perspective—for people like my mother-in-law who do not have the choice of using their eyeballs to read, and for whom listening to audiobooks is their only option for entertainment or education—branding any and all digital narration as slop, and canceling authors who choose to offer audiobooks that way because a full human production is cost-prohibitive, reeks of entitlement and privilege.

And given what I've seen happening in my industry in the last couple of weeks—authors getting doxed, canceled, and having other authors and readers actively calling book event organizers to tell them to block or bar certain authors from attending signings; plus a small but crucial publishing app company having to roll back an optional formatting assistant that would save authors hours of manual labour because they got mobbed on Threads by a vigilante witch-hunt—it is beyond heartbreaking.

Since when has publishing, since when has the romance industry, since when have romance authors and readers in particular become an ouroboros—when we've spent decades fighting against being looked down upon and being called trashy for our writing and reading choices? When have we as an industry become so virtuous that we are actively out there destroying careers and the livelihoods of small businesses because we do not agree with a technology that's being implemented?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: technology—any technology—is a tool. It is only as good or as bad as the person using it. And I say this as someone who spent over two decades in the IT industry before moving into publishing.

I make it a point to scroll past if I see something I do not agree with, but here's my line in the sand. When you destroy livelihoods and careers, when you virtue signal about something you do not entirely understand, when you use your privilege to tear down and limit accessibility for people like my mother-in-law who cannot read and are dependent on audiobooks—this is when I will speak out.

Because it is not okay when you can see and read with your eyeballs. When you can afford to buy human-narrated audiobooks. When you try to control who gets to read what based on your personal prejudices towards a tool. When it's the only way an author can afford to bring their books to people who can't otherwise read a written book.

That's when it becomes toxic. That's when it becomes gatekeeping. And that's when you are anthropomorphising a tool that's neither good, bad, nor evil.

I will be the first one to admit that I prefer human-narrated books, and I'm fully cognisant of the fact that I'm in a very privileged position to be able to have access to some fantastic audiobooks as a result of that.

I will also be the first one to admit that I have a very limited range in what I can listen to because of my hyperphantasia, so I'm picky about what audiobooks I choose. My tastes run towards solo male narrators, duet, full cast, and GraphicAudio productions. I prefer human-narrated books for that reason. But because of personal experience with my mother-in-law, I would never call something that's not human narrated slop.

How a book is narrated and produced has no bearing on whether it's going to be a good book or not. I know this because I see this in my job daily. A book is just as likely to be poorly written by a human as it is well-written, depending on how much time said human spends on learning their craft. It's like any other art form, skill, or expertise.

GIGO.

So the next time you see an author offer a digitally narrated audiobook, please stop for a moment and consider the fact that without these audiobooks, many people might never get to read a book at all.

Sending lots of kittens and grass for those who need to touch it.

PS. I’m including some of my current and past listens that are fabulous if you’d like some recs. In no particular order—

A Cold Dark Place by Toni Anderson because I’m obsessed with Eric G Dove’s voice. OBSESSED.

Clean Sweep by Ilona Andrews in GraphicAudio. It’s Ilona Andrews, you can’t go wrong between the stellar writing and the GraphicAudio production. Listen to the entire series!!

Also in GraphicAudio: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells, The Night Huntress series by Jeaniene Frost, and Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson. They really are a movie in my mind.

How to Shield an Assassin (the whole series, really) by AJ Sherwood.

Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci.

There’s more, but these are the highlights for now. If you want more of what I love in the audiobook space, check out my monthly reading wrap-ups on my website, Deanna’s World.

9 November 2026

This little Note was inspired by my Audible app. Or rather, what popped up when I was looking for my next listen. Such a bossy app…

If you want to see the weird pop-up pics from my Audible app encouraging me to listen more, head over to Substack. I’ve included them there and no, you do not need an account to view it. Far as I can tell, it’s public though it does pop-up (sooooo many pop-ups) to ask you to sign-up. You don’t have to!!

While we’re on the topic of listening to audiobooks, or reading any books of any sort, really—may I also add that after years and years of setting a reading goal of a hundred books a year (this year was set at a much lower number because life and work have been bonkers)—I hate the gamification of reading/listening.

Why? I think it puts undue pressure on people who are reading, and reading should be fun, enjoyable, relaxing, or educational.

None of those things require that we put any pressure on ourselves when it comes to the activity, whether we do it for work or as a hobby.

And then there’s the whole social media pressure aspect of it:

People getting shamed for reading too fast.

People getting called out for reading too many books in a year.

People made to feel guilty for reading too slowly.

People getting shamed for not reading enough.

Did you know the average person only reads ten to twelve books a year? I read that statistic in passing somewhere ages ago.

It surprised me because my mum and dad are huge readers. My brother and sister aren’t huge readers, unless you count the odd magazine my sister used to flip through, the books they both read with their kids, or for my brother—the business books he reads which make me want to poke out my eyeballs from boredom. That’s an entirely different issue, tho.

Of course, both Hubby and I are huge readers. One day, ask me to tell you Hubby’s and my origin story when it comes to reading. I might have mentioned mine here or there in passing, but I don’t think I’ve ever told Hubby’s reading origin story.

And I read for work, which is a whole other ball of beeswax.

So yes, the gamification of reading. I’m not a fan.

And I truly think the only ones who benefit from it are the platforms promoting the challenges, cos you’ll need to buy more books or audiobooks to read and listen to while they encourage you to hit those goals, yeah?

I’m not against reading lots of books or listening to lots of audiobooks. Hey, look at what I do for a day job. Without avid readers and listeners, I wouldn’t have a job, so thank you to everyone who's picked up a book or an audiobook for helping me feed Hubby.

But that said, no one—and I mean literally no one—should ever be made to feel inferior, shamed, or guilty for any part of reading or not reading.

No one.

Ever.

Right. I’m getting off my soapbox now. Must be something in the air…

Sending kittens for cuddles and hot chocolate for the cozy reading vibes.

So just two Notes on the one topic. I hope you enjoyed them. I'd love to know what you think too, so drop a comment or several down below.

On the life and work front, we’re not around much while juggling some work commitments, in-person work-related meetings for me with some of my authors both past and present, and then it’s Christmas.

I am so looking forward to Christmas and my end of year break. I attempt to take three weeks off work to recharge from Christmas Eve onwards. The last two years, I’ve failed miserably. Things happened and I ended up working through my three-week break, so no break for me. I’m hoping this year will be different.

Keep your fingers crossed for me.

I really would like to recharge and come back refreshed. ARCs for the team, book reviews for authors, lots of writing for me during my down time, and who knows… there might be some other fun, cool, secret stuff that I’ll reveal too. Stay tuned for that.

Until next time…

xoxo, Deanna.