Creating an audiobook

After a week on the road, promoting the book in the southern and western counties of England – heart-meltingly beautiful at this time of year, dressed in the burnished colours of autumn – I took up residence in a disused chapel in Ramsgate old town in order to commit the text to audio.

Why? Because audiobooks are now so popular that around a third of us are listening to books instead of reading them. Income from audiobooks reached a record £268 million in 2024, according to figures from the Publishing Association, the body that represents UK publishers.

As the Guardian reports, ‘Whether it’s plugging into Benedict Cumberbatch reading Austen while doing the washing-up, or listening to Meryl Streep narrate Nora Ephron’s ‘Heartburn’ on the way to work, the UK is increasingly getting into audiobooks.’

Revisiting the manuscript that I delivered to my publisher, Whitefox, last spring, I have found myself re-astonished by the bare facts of Freddie’s early life. No wonder he closed his heart and mind to his childhood years when he and his family fled to London in 1964.

50 years on: the meaning of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' - revealed by Freddie Mercury

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? The world has been arguing the toss for years.

Although the song’s originator never explained the lyrics, declaring vaguely that they were 'just about relationships' with 'a bit of nonsense in the middle', conflicting theories about its true meaning are as rife today as they were half a century ago. While Queen's surviving members - Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon - have always protected their frontman's most closely-guarded secret, speculation persists.

But now, fifty years after Queen's soaring magnum opus was first released, I can reveal the song's true meaning.

Read 'Love, Freddie: Freddie Mercury's Secret Life & Love' by Lesley-Ann Jones

'The showbiz book of the year' - Daily Mail