Msjodi777 asked Michael J. Sullivan:

I have a question about audiobooks. First of all, the big question, how do you feel about audiobooks - do you think they help or hinder book sales? Do you go into a project knowing that it will become an audiobook, if so, do you make any changes in the way you write things with an eye on the audiobook side of it? <

Michael J. Sullivan I adore audiobooks!! And I do think they have been instrumental in my success as an author. For instance, I've been giving away free copies of my short stories in audio for some time now and the Free copy of The Jester just hit 100,000 downloads! That's a ton of people who were introduced to my stories just from that alone.

At this stage of my career, audiobooks are a major part of my publishing strategy - so yes, every project I do has an audio component. In fact, I've even sold a few audio projects BEFORE signing the books with traditional publishers for print/ebooks as controlling them is the best way for me to make sure they are created the way I want them to be.

The only thing I do with regards to 'changing in writing' - is that from time to time if there is an important piece of internal dialog I'll sometimes add an attribution to it...something like "Royce thought." My editors tend to want to whack those off because the text in the book is in italics so the extra words aren't necessary - but I put in them in there because I want the audio listeners to be 100% sure it wasn't said aloud as if it was, it could significantly change the meaning and although the narrator will usually change his voice just a bit for internal dialog, the change may not be enough for people to be aware it was a silent thought.

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