Publishing Talks Interview with John Cheary of John Marshall Media

Publishing Talks began as a series of conversations with book industry professionals and others involved in media and technology, mostly talking about the future of publishing, books, and culture. It was great fun talking with people in the book industry about the evolution of publishing in the context of technology, culture, and economics.

During the past several years, I’ve talked with a variety of innovators and leaders in independent publishing and bookselling from the past into the present.

These conversations have been inspirational to me. I have had the pleasure of speaking with visionaries and entrepreneurs, editors, publishers, and others who have influenced and changed contemporary literature and culture. And I’ve also had the opportunity to speak with longstanding friends and colleagues in the book business.

Whether you’re involved in book publishing or just interested in how the business works, it’s well worth understanding the ins and outs of audiobooks. Some of us can remember when audiobooks existed only on cassette tapes, which required a lot of effort and doubtless kept audiobook listening to a niche audience. With the advent of higher capacity CD’s, and more easily portable listening devices (and cars with factory CD players more frequently available), audiobook sales increased, but their higher cost kept audiobook sales from becoming a significant channel for most books (and the high cost of production prevented many titles from even being made into audiobooks).

In the past decade, the advent of digital audio players and near-universal broadband has changed the audiobook market completely. Audible was and remains the leader in digital audiobook sales, but there are many other outlets for audiobooks, and the market has expanded to become a significant revenue stream for publishers and authors.

John Cheary is the founder and CEO of John Marshall Media. He graduated from Berklee College of Music. Founding his business in 1995, he has grown it to become a leading independent audio production company – perhaps the largest of its kind. He knows more than almost anyone else I can think of about audiobook production and how the audio segment of the book business has evolved.

JMM produces audiobooks for a wide range of publishers, including Penguin Random House, Harper Audio, Google, Amazon, Scholastic, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, McGraw-Hill, and many more. JMM has twenty one Studios in two countries, over 1,000 Narrators and Voice Actors, and has won five GRAMMY Awards.

It should come as no surprise that the biggest issue in audiobook publishing today is the advent of AI, seen by many as a way to replace more expensive humans with AI-generated narrators.  Naturally, John has strong opinions about this subject—and many others. I think you will agree that what he has to say about AI narrators is likely applicable to other areas of creative business where AI use is being promoted as well.

John has been a friend and sometimes colleague for many years, and I am grateful to him for allowing me to record Writerscast interviews from time to time at JMM’s studio with its outstanding equipment and recording team—including this one.

I’d be surprised if you don’t learn something from this discussion — I certainly did. Please let me know what you think of our conversation.

Here’s a link to the JMM website.