W F Howes snaps up audio rights for Stanton’s ChatGPT-inspired debut

W F Howes has snapped up audio rights for Andy Stanton’s AI-inspired non-fiction debut, Benny the Blue Whale: A Descent into Story, Language and the Madness of ChatGPT.

Georgia Holmes, senior acquisitions editor at W F Howes, acquired world audiobook rights from Oneworld, and the audiobook will be released in December 2023, voiced with the help of Nish Kumar.

"Intrigued by the launch of ChatGPT, Andy Stanton—who has made a career out of writing differently—set about testing the AI bot’s capabilities and pushing it to its creative limits," the synopsis says. "What follows is a surprising, illuminating, and chaotic battle between the author and ChatGPT that provides a hilarious, anarchic meditation on AI, literature and why we write."

In the audio edition, the author will voice his own ChatGPT prompts while stand-up comedian Kumar will play the role of ChatGPT. Stanton commented: “Writing Benny turned my life into a chaotic near meltdown—which is sort of the same as writing any book, except that this time I wasn’t just up against myself, I was playing word games with a maniac. It was lovely to finally meet that maniac in the form of Nish—he makes the funniest, most endearing version of ChatGPT I could imagine.”

Holmes added: “Through his Mr Gum series, in particular, Andy has established himself as one of the UK’s most beloved and imaginative storytellers, but Benny the Blue Whale is a completely new departure. It is a bold, innovative and genius experiment in fiction that explores the potential (and flaws) of AI and what our future relationship with technology might look like. Nish Kumar, with his expert comedic delivery, timing and tone, is the perfect narration partner for Andy, and I can’t wait to see how audiobook listeners respond to their stellar performance.”