According to the Audio Publishers Association and Harris Interactive, audiobook revenues grew 10 percent in 2022 to $1.8 billion, marking the 11th straight year of double-digit growth in this sector.

What’s more, the size of the audiobook listening market has also increased, with a majority of U.S. adults (53 percent) now saying they’ve listened to audiobooks—up from 45 percent last year.

“Audio is the fastest-growing format in the industry,” says HarperAudio Associate Publisher Brad Hill.

This rapid growth has encouraged publishers to experiment with audiobook production. For instance, publishers are releasing more audiobook originals, or productions created specifically for audio and not available in print.

Publishers are also adding more music and sound effects to their audiobooks. They’re creating multicast productions that resemble radio plays, and they’re taking advantage of advancements such as Dolby Atmos, a surround-sound technology, to create highly immersive audio experiences for listeners.

In addition, audiobook listeners are hearing the influence of podcasts on the production process, with audiobooks interspersing traditional narration with snippets of interviews, music, and other media. “As podcasts have grown in popularity, this has helped fuel audiobook sales as well,” says Simon & Schuster Audio Publisher Chris Lynch.

Innovation has become a key watchword in audiobook publishing, and publishers are even looking to adapt highly visual works—such as cookbooks and travel books—that were once avoided in audio format. As Penguin Random House Audio Senior Executive Producer Julianna Wilson observes: “We’re constantly innovating and trying new things.”

Here are some of the new audiobooks for fall 2023 that librarians may be interested in.

Penguin Random House Audio 

As the audiobook publishing arm of Penguin Random House, PRH Audio produces about 2,200 adult and children’s fiction and nonfiction audiobooks each year. The division consists of more than 100 employees and has studios in both California and New York, so it attracts some of the best actors and voice talent in the world.

Nathan Hill, New York Times best-selling author of The Nix, is back with a new release this fall called Wellness, narrated by Ari Fliakos, September 2023, ISBN 9780593788172. It’s a witty yet very moving novel about modern marriage and the pursuit of health and happiness. “It’s a ‘big idea’ piece of fiction with a healthy dose of heart,” says Vice President of Audio Production Karen Dziekonski. “So many parts of this book resonated with me.” Fliakos also narrated the audiobook version of The Nix, and he was named Audible’s narrator of the year in 2017.

In Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things by Adam Grant, October 2023, ISBN 9780593670613, the New York Times best-selling author of Think Again draws upon years of research to reveal how we can elevate ourselves and others to reach unexpected heights. An organizational psychologist, Grant is the host of multiple podcasts that make listeners rethink how they approach work and life, and the audiobook version of Hidden Potential—which Grant narrates—resembles a podcast itself, as it also features the actual voices of individuals who are quoted in the book.

Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror edited by Jordan Peele and John Joseph Adams, October 2023, ISBN 9780593790038, includes short stories by 19 different authors. Like Peele’s movies, such as Get Out (2017) and Us (2019), the stories in this collection explore not only the terrors of the supernatural but also the everyday struggles of social injustice. The audiobook version features an ensemble cast with a different voice for every story. “We’re casting actors whose cultural background reflects that of the characters in the stories,” says Julianna Wilson, director of digital production and senior executive producer.

To make the audiobook version of Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones by Dolly Parton with Holly George-Warren and Rebecca Seaver, October 2023, ISBN 9780593788707, the producers faced a key challenge. A celebration of Parton’s iconic sense of style, the book features 450 full-color photos. “In print, it’s highly visual,” Wilson says. “How could we make the audiobook version a unique listening experience?” They solved this challenge by incorporating archival audio from interviews with Parton and snippets of the singer’s music along with narration from Parton and her co-authors. The result is what Wilson calls “a truly immersive listening experience.”

Memoirs of famous people tend to be very popular in audiobook format, because listeners often get to hear the subject tell their story in their own voice. Another example from PRH Audio is My Name Is Barbra by Barbra Streisand, November 2023, ISBN 9780593788455. Through 50 hours of audio recorded in Streisand’s home over 45 days, this living legend—whose  career has spanned six decades—tells the story of her life, from growing up in Brooklyn to her breakthrough role in the movie Funny Girl and beyond. “The book, like Barbra, is frank, funny, opinionated, and charming,” Dziekonski says.

Hachette Audio

Hachette Audio is the audiobook division of the Hachette Book Group, a leading U.S. trade publisher and a division of the third-largest book publisher in the world, Hachette Livre. Since 2000, Hachette Audio productions have been recognized with more than 200 Audie Award Nominations and 47 wins; 24 Grammy® nominations and nine wins; and more than 60 Listen Up! Awards from Publishers Weekly.

Hachette Audio has more than 220 new titles coming out in fall 2023, including Sing a Black Girl’s Song by Ntozake Shange, September 2023, ISBN 9780306828515. Curated by National Book Award winner Imani Perry, this posthumous work includes never-before-published essays, plays, and poems from the archives of Shange, an award-winning American literary icon and seminal Black feminist writer who stands alongside giants like Toni Morrison and Alice Walker. The audiobook version features an all-star cast of narrators led by Alfre Woodard, with an introduction by Perry and a foreword by New York Times best-selling author Tarana Burke.

From Rolling Stone founder Jann S. Wenner comes The Masters, September 2023, ISBN 9780316571050, a remarkable collection of archival interviews with seven of the greatest rock and roll stars and cultural icons of our time. A “must listen” for music fans of all ages, it features seven hours of conversations—including never-before-released audio—from interviews with Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Pete Townshend, Jerry Garcia, Bruce Springsteen, and Bono.

Leslie F*cking Jones: A Memoir, September 2023, ISBN 9781668623459, is written and narrated by former Saturday Night Live writer and cast member Leslie Jones. Hilarious, poignant, and ultimately inspiring, the book describes all the things she wishes her younger self had known. “There’s a lot of SNL backstage gossip,” says Associate Director of Marketing Nita Basu. “It’s a great mix of comedy and tragedy, and Jones is brutally honest in the book. She also ad libs a lot in the audiobook version, and she claims the audio version is better than the print edition.”

In another celebrity memoir, Thicker Than Water, September 2023, ISBN 9781549156113, award-winning actor, director, producer, and activist Kerry Washington shares the moving journey of her life so far, as well as the story of discovering her truth. “She talks about how she came to understand who she was and to construct both her public and her private identity,” says Publicity Consultant SallyAnne McCartin.

I Wasn’t Supposed to Be Here by Jonathan Conyers, September 2023, ISBN 9781668632284, is the inspirational true story of 27-year-old Conyers, who as a troubled Black teen developed a friendship with “DiCo,” his transgender high school debate coach of the underdog team that changed the course of his life. Conyers went on to co-found the Brooklyn Debate League, a nonprofit whose mission is to introduce debating to at-risk communities. Narrated by Conyers, the audiobook version includes podcast-style interviews with some of the key people from his life.

In A Grandmother Begins the Story by Michelle Porter, November 2023, ISBN 9781668632673, Porter—an award-winning author and member of the Manitoba Métis Federation—makes her fiction debut with an enchanting original story about the desire for healing and the power of familial bonds across five generations of Métis women. Porter also leads an authentic cast of 16 narrators for the story’s audio version.

VOX Publishing

VOX Publishing, the content-publishing arm of media firm Library Ideas, produces multimedia children’s books that help young readers develop their literacy skills.
The company’s signature products are VOX Books, or audiobooks that exist within printed books. These books provide full audio narration at the push of a button so that children ages 3–9 can listen as they read along in the text, using an audio reader attached to the inside cover.

A new release for fall 2023 that’s perfect for back-to-school season is The Day You Begin, written and narrated by Jacqueline Woodson, illustrated by Rafael Lopez, August 2023, ISBN 9798885193597. This picture book reminds children that we all feel like outsiders sometimes—but when we find the courage to reach out to others, they’re often likely to meet us halfway.

In Twenty Questions by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Christian Robinson, narrated by Deepa Samuel, August 2023, ISBN 9798885192934, the author poses 20 thought-provoking questions for children that are both playful and profound. The questions work in tandem with the book’s quirky illustrations to inspire creativity. For instance: “How many animals can you not see in this [picture] because they’re hiding from the tiger?”

Still This Love Goes On, written and narrated by singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie, illustrated by Julie Flett, August 2023, ISBN 9798885192439, is a picture book based on the author’s song of the same name. At the book’s heart is a gentle message about missing our loved ones and the promise of seeing each other again.

The Shape of Home by Rashin Kheiriyeh, narrated by Ariana Delawari, August 2023, ISBN 9798885192842, is from an Iranian American author-illustrator. In this imaginative work, it’s Rashin’s first day of school in America and she worries that everything is different from Iran. Her teacher asks each child to imagine the shape of their home country on a map. Rashin knows right away what she’ll say: Iran looks like a cat! What will the other kids say? “I don’t think I’ve run across another first-day-of-school book as unique or memorable as this one,” says Executive Editor Margot Wallace.

A nonfiction work from VOX is Luminous: Living Things That Light Up the Night by Julia Kuo, narrated by Suehyla El-Attar Young, August 2023, ISBN 9798885192446. The book explores the concept of bioluminescence and its many forms in nature, from fireflies to vampire squids. “Through simple, informative text combined with stunning artwork, kids will realize how wondrous the world really is,” Wallace says.

Each season, VOX also publishes several Spanish-language titles. Mis Dos Pueblos Fronterizos by David Bowles, illustrated by Erika Meza, narrated by Oscar Fabela, August 2023, ISBN 9798885192811, is a Spanish-language edition of My Two Border Towns. The story of a young boy who prepares to cross the border to a neighboring town with his father, it highlights the importance of community and how complex life can be on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Bear and Bird: The Picnic and Other Stories by Jarvis, narrated by Jake Ruddle, August 2023, ISBN 9798885193023, is an early reader chapter book about best friends who don’t always understand each other but want each other to be happy. “Of all the books on our fall list, this one wins the ‘cozy’ prize,” Wallace says. “It’s a book you just want to curl up with.”

CamCat Publishing 

Founded in 2019, CamCat is an independent publisher of genre fiction for adults and young adults, such as sci-fi/fantasy, horror, mystery/suspense, and romance. The company produces an audio version for each of the 30 or so titles it publishes per year, and its authors are heavily involved in the process.

“We’ve had a number of audiobooks win industry awards,” says Sales and Marketing Associate Abigail Miles. “In fact, we were the only indie press to receive recognition in a major category in the 2023 Audie Awards from the Audio Publishers Association.” (Intergalactic Exterminators Inc. by Ash Bishop won the award for Best Science Fiction Audiobook.)

New for this fall, Ghost Tamer by Meredith R. Lyons, narrated by Piper Goodeve, September 2023, ISBN 9780744302851, is a paranormal story of an aspiring comedienne, Raely, who survives a train wreck that kills her best friend and awakens her ability to see ghosts—including one spirit who’s watching over her and another who wants to destroy her. “This is a spooky and thrilling book that spans the whole emotional spectrum,” Miles says. “Piper does such a good job of capturing Raely’s humorous tone.”

Phantom by Helen Power, narrated by Rachel Fulginiti (as Roz) and Eunice Wong (as the Phantom Strangler), October 2023, ISBN 9780744302776, is a gripping mystery, thriller, and sci-fi mash-up. It’s about a woman named Roz who’s broke and decides to sell her left hand to a mysterious stranger for quick cash. But when she starts to feel a psychic connection to her missing limb, she discovers that it’s being used to strangle people. The audio narration alternates between the perspectives of Roz and the killer who’s using her former hand, adding to the story’s suspense.

Girl on Trial by Kathleen Fine, narrated by Reba Buhr, October 2023, ISBN 9780744306934, is a young adult thriller that “will have listeners on the edge of their seats,” Miles says. Sixteen-year-old Emily Keller is on trial for causing the deaths of a family of four. Scenes from the trial are interspersed with flashbacks that show the lengths to which Emily—who grew up in a trailer park with her twin brother and alcoholic mother—would go to fit in with her wealthier peers. “Listeners will be questioning right up to the end what really happened on that fateful night—and whether Emily is actually guilty,” Miles observes.

Simon & Schuster Audio 

Simon & Schuster Audio is the audiobook division of Simon & Schuster, a subsidiary of Paramount Global. The company produces more than 500 audiobooks per year, including some original audio productions. 

An example is The Honeymoon Crashers: An Audio Original by Christina Lauren, August 2023, ISBN 9781797158143. Christina Lauren is the combined pen name of longtime writing partners, friends, and best-selling authors known for their romantic comedies, Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings. In this four-hour original production written specifically for the audio format, a perfectionist maid of honor and a carefree, surfer-bro best man team up to plan a wedding and end up finding a spark of their own. 

A blend of prose narration and fully dramatized scenes, the production features a cast of a dozen actors, led by Jessica Marie Garcia from the sitcom The Middle and Harry Shum Jr. from the TV series Glee.
Another Simon & Schuster Audio original production is But First, God: An Audio Memoir of Spiritual Discovery by Julie Chen Moonves, September 2023, ISBN 9781797158563. In this audiobook, recorded without a script, Chen Moonves—a news anchor, host of the CBS television show Big Brother, and wife of former CBS Chairman and President Les Moonves—shares her transformative spiritual awakening as she revisits pivotal moments from her life and career. The production resembles “a cross between a podcast and a traditional audiobook,” says Publisher Chris Lynch.

Yet another original audio production is #CrimeTime by Jeneva Rose and Drew Pyne, December 2023, ISBN 9781797157337. Ideal for fans of the Hulu series Only Murders in the Building, it was written specifically for audio by the author and her husband of the best-selling The Perfect Marriage. In this drama, the main character, Nadiya, is a mystery writer who loves her privacy. But when her half-brother, Chase, comes to town needing a place to stay, her quiet life is disrupted in a big way. When a burglary occurs in the apartment upstairs, Chase decides to film and post all the action on TikTok. But unbeknown to him or Nadiya, the crime involves the mob—and suddenly they’re plunged into the world of organized crime.

This fully dramatized audio production features a cast of 11 actors. “It’s a modern take on a cozy mystery,” Lynch says. “People who like dramatic mysteries will have a good time with it.”

Macmillan Audio 

The audiobook division of Macmillan Publishers, Macmillan Audio produces about 500 audiobooks per year. The vast majority of these are simultaneous audio releases of new Macmillan titles, says Vice President of Marketing Samantha Edelson, but the company also has an “originals” unit that produces audio adaptations and original works. 

From debut author Jamison Shea comes I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me, August 2023, ISBN 9781250323101, a young adult villain origin story read by Grammy and Emmy-award–winning actress Kristolyn Lloyd (The Bold and the Beautiful). The action takes place in the cutthroat world of Parisian ballet. Laure Mesny is a perfectionist who will do whatever she must to prove that a Black girl can take center stage—including striking a deal with a primordial power. “With Kristolyn reading this novel, I think it will be a breakout success,” Edelson says.

One Blood by New York Times bestseller Denene Millner, narrated by Bahni Turpin, Joniece Abott-Pratt, and Tina Lifford, September 2023, ISBN 9781250290397, is a multigenerational story spanning from the Great Northward Migration during the first half of the 20th century to the civil unrest of the 1960s and the quest for women’s equality in the early 2000s. The story, focused on three women united by blood and family secrets, explores their powerful struggle with generational trauma and healing. The audiobook version features multicast narration, with a different voice for each of the main characters.

A new fantasy series by V. E. Schwab, the New York Times best-selling author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, also features multicast narration. The Fragile Threads of Power, narrated by Marisa Calin, Michael Kramer, and Kate Reading, September 2023, ISBN 9781250902573, features four magical worlds connected by a single city: London. The magicians who can travel between these worlds have become more rare over time, until now only a handful remain. Amid this backdrop, a girl with an unusual ability comes into possession of a device that could change the fate of all four worlds.

Romance novelist Debbie Macomber has said, “Nobody does Christmas like Mary Kay Andrews.” Bright Lights, Big Christmas, narrated by Kathleen McInerney, September 2023, ISBN 9781250902474, is a new novella from Andrews that celebrates the charm of the holiday season. When Kerry Tolliver leaves her family’s Christmas tree farm in North Carolina to help her brother in Greenwich Village, she experiences Manhattan for the first time. In the weeks leading into Christmas, Kerry becomes close with her charming neighbors. When an elderly neighbor goes missing, she must combine her country know-how with her newly acquired New York savvy to protect the friends she’s come to think of as family.

Inheritance by Nora Roberts, narrated by Brittany Pressley, November 2023, ISBN 9781250902443, is the first book in the new series “Lost Bride Trilogy” from the New York Times best-selling author. It’s about a graphic designer who’s stunned to learn her late father had a twin he never knew about—and that her newly discovered uncle has left her a majestic Victorian house on the Maine coast. When she moves in, she realizes the house is haunted by a centuries-old curse, and she must solve the mystery behind the curse if she has any hope of breaking it.

HarperAudio 

As the audiobook division of HarperCollins Publishers, HarperAudio produces about 1,500 audio titles per year, ranging from children’s to adult content. Because audio is the fastest-growing format in publishing, nearly every new title the company publishes gets an audiobook version, except for cookbooks and coffee-table books that are heavily reliant on photography. “Even then, we take a hard look at those books and try to adapt them if we can,” says Associate Publisher Brad Hill.

HarperAudio has several audiobooks coming out this fall that are narrated by well-known actors and celebrities. For instance, Tom Lake by Ann Patchett, August 2023, ISBN 9780063327559, is narrated by multiple Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep. Set in northern Michigan, it tells the story of three adult daughters who return to their parents’ cherry orchard during the onset of COVID. While helping to run the orchard, they ask their mother to tell them about her romance with a famous actor before she married their father. A meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents led before their children were born, the book “is a slow build to an ending that is quite beautiful,” Hill says. 

Talking to My Angels, September 2023, ISBN 9780063257474, is written and narrated by Melissa Etheridge. Twenty years after the success of her first memoir, the New York Times bestseller The Truth Is…, the Grammy and Oscar award-winning rocker and trailblazing LGBTQ+ icon reflects on the intervening years, recalling the triumphs and tragedies she’s experienced over the last two decades. The audiobook version features her music interspersed with the narration.

Fans of the popular Netflix series Stranger Things are very familiar with the young actress Millie Bobbie Brown. Nineteen Steps, September 2023, ISBN 9780063335790, is Brown’s authorial debut. It’s a novel that she also narrates about a young British woman who finds love with an American soldier in London in 1942. The story was inspired by the true events that Brown’s family experienced during World War II.

Kicks in the Sky, written and narrated by C.G. Esperanza, September 2023, ISBN 9780063342415, is a book for children ages 4–8. It’s a “fun and unique story,” Hill says, that takes place in New York City, where the author is from. When a group of kids see a pair of sneakers hanging on a telephone wire, they make up stories about how the shoes got there. One day, when the shoes fall, the children try them on—and the sneakers take them on magical adventures.

Novelist Tim O’Brien, who served in the Vietnam War, is perhaps best known for The Things They Carried, a collection of semi-autobiographical stories inspired by his wartime experiences. More than 30 years after that book was published, he has a new book coming out in October 2023, called America Fantastica, ISBN 9780063318533. As of press time, the audiobook version was still being cast. The story is about a bank robbery carried out by a disgraced journalist-turned-online-troll that leads to a cross-country chase. The book “puts an ear to our nation at a time when it has become dangerously unmoored from the truth,” Hill says.

In addition to these works, HarperAudio’s fall releases include audiobooks from Jada Pinkett Smith and Geddy Lee, lead vocalist and bassist, respectively, for the Canadian rock group Rush.

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