Take a glance at the audio books’ jackets in the bookstore and you’ll see some familiar names. As audio books become ever more popular, celebrities are jumping on the bandwagon to get their voices out there and authors love the added media exposure they get when someone famous agrees to be the voice of their work of art.

Many celebrities have written best selling books that proudly display their pictures on the cover, but audio books take them one step further by having the stars read the books they wrote. Audio books allow the celebrity to inject his or her own emotions in the reading and also encourages their fans to purchase the book.

Authors who write fictional or non-fictional books can depend on a jump in sales if a well know personality endorses his book by giving it a “voice” in the audio book market.

Many times, audio books are performed by several different voices – or characters – played by various actors and actresses and can also be enhanced by background music. You can find entire volumes of audio books complete with sound effects and character contributions.

Bill and Hillary Clinton both loaned their voices to their best selling books. Sales of their audio books went through the roof, demonstrating that people enjoy hearing memoirs from the authors, themselves.

Children’s audio books have also been the recipients of our favorite celebrities lending their voices for readings. Animal growls, songs and other sound effects can be interjected into the audio book, making it realistic and much more interesting to a child.

Celebrities aren’t necessarily attracted to lending their voices to audio books because of pay. The normal pay rate to read a six-hour audio book is only $4,000 to $6,000 – mere pocket change to the highly paid famous of today.

When an audio book is read by a famous person, it’s usually because the celebrity is a personal friend or a fan of the author. Books are also read by celebrities in order to make a political statement.

Whatever the reason that celebrities lend their names to audio books, sales are increasing and it’s becoming ever more chic for celebrities to use their highly recognizable voices to read them.