Hello from illuminory

Hello, and welcome to the Illuminory blog. Illuminory is a new audiobook shop with a free player app for iPhone and Android. You buy a book once, at its own price, and it is yours to keep. There is no subscription, no credits and no monthly fee, and nothing in the app is trying to sell you anything.

That is the short version. This first post covers the longer one: how the shop works, why it works that way, and what you will find on this blog.

Buy it once, keep it

We wanted audiobooks to work the way books always have. You pay for one, and it is yours. Every book on Illuminory has its own price, paid once, with nothing to renew and nothing to cancel. A book you have bought has no expiry date.

You see each price in your own currency, with your country's tax already in it where it applies, and the checkout tells you the exact amount before you pay anything. A bundle costs less than the books in it would cost one by one.

Our terms put the trust part simply: "The files are not locked; we trust you instead." Copying, reselling and lending are still ruled out, but we would rather treat listeners as adults than wrap every book in locks.

A fair share for the person who wrote it

Every sale pays the author 70 percent of the book's price before VAT. That share is fixed for as long as the book is here. The other 30 percent pays for the card fees, the tax handling, the hosting, the apps and the shop itself.

So when you buy a book on Illuminory, most of what you pay goes to the person who wrote it. Authors set their own prices, and there is no contract to sign, no fee and no exclusivity. If you write books yourself, our pages for authors explain how it works.

You can see how a book is narrated

Every audiobook here carries a mark on its cover saying how it is narrated. HUMAN NARRATED means a person reads it. DIGITALLY NARRATED means a digital voice reads the author's text, and the cover says so. FULL CAST PRODUCTION means more than one voice, with each character played by a different narrator.

A digitally narrated book on Illuminory uses voices derived from real human performers, who are paid for the use of their voices. Whichever kind you prefer, you know before you press play.

Nobody watching over your shoulder

The site has no advertising trackers and no analytics scripts, and the only cookie is the one that keeps you signed in. We count visits in total, never who made them. The about page has the rest of the detail, and the privacy page says exactly what we keep.

What this blog is for

Here we will write about listening: what to hear next, how to tell how a book is narrated, and what owning an audiobook means in practice. There will be posts for authors too, about selling audiobooks and what that pays, and news whenever a new book arrives or the Illuminory Author Podcast has a new episode. The podcast is free in any podcast app, with authors talking about the story behind each book and how it was produced.

The store has not opened yet, so for now every book you see here is marked as coming soon. If you want somewhere to start, here is one.

Featured on Illuminory

22:22:22: Frequency Shift

Toby Steele, book 1

by Adam Eccles

Narrated by Mark Rice-Oxley

Audiobook 9h 7m

• HUMAN NARRATEDRead by a human narrator.

One moment that will change your life forever

"Take any simple man and rapidly make him exceptional…" That was the opening line of a secret Cold War-era government brief — one designed to create superhuman capability through applied technology. The project was buried. Forgotten. Or so everyone thought.

Coming soon to the Illuminory store.

More books are on their way, and more posts with them.