Before Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams were Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander, Quinn founder Caroline Spiegler booked the budding actors for her audio erotica app. She reached out to their teams after seeing the trailer for Crave’s “Heated Rivalry.” HBO Max hadn’t even made its distribution deal for what would become the hottest romance on TV.
“I’m a TikTok addict,” Spiegler explains. And her extensive hours online paid off.
Quinn, created in 2019 when Spiegler was a college student recovering from an eating disorder and experiencing a loss of libido, launched as an app in 2021, with romance novels read in sensual, digestible clips. A year later, Spiegler introduced Quinn Originals, steamy audio stories written by Quinn creators and narrated by celebrities. In the five years since, she’s booked everyone from Andrew Scott and Tom Blyth to Jamie Campbell Bower, Thomas Doherty and most recently, Tyriq Withers. And timeliness is key: Christopher Briney’s audio series debuted two days after the series finale of “The Summer I Turned Pretty.”
“The power of the imagination really cannot be overstated,” Spiegler says of the recent rise in demand. “Reading and listening are really popular, especially for erotic or romantic content, because it leaves room for fantasy and mystery.” Currently, 41.6% of Quinn listeners are in the 25-34 age range.
Meanwhile, 25.6% of listeners are 35-44, while 20% is in the 18-24 range. Subscriptions are $8 a month or $60 a year.
Listeners can choose from dozens of categories, from “Hold the Moan” to “Best Friend’s Brother.” But the top category has consistently been “Boyfriend,” which offers “loving relationship vibes.” “That will alternate with ‘MDom’ — Christian Grey-type vibes. There’s this interesting dichotomy that emerges where people want both,” Spiegler says.
Storrie and Williams’ “Ember & Ice” is the most-listened-to series to date (for a total of 39 million minutes). For the first time, the original included two leads; all others feature the actor as protagonist and the listener as the object of desire.
“For creators, it’s logistically so much easier to do it solo, especially for the really explicit audios,” Spiegler says. But after “Ember & Ice” took off, they started expanding the possibilities. “We have some really cool multi-voice actor projects in the works that I think people are going to like.”
Spiegler teases “one highly anticipated sequel” is coming soon. On Tuesday, she was excited to debut the first series led by an actor 50+ — “Yes, Chef,” narrated by “The Pitt” star Shawn Hatosy. The first episode had already reached more than 100,000 plays, less than 12 hours after it dropped, at the time of publication.
Quinn has grown exponentially in the past year, with the number of employees nearly doubling in the last year. The staff of 20 now includes Jamie Monahan, who is both intimacy coordinator and script supervisor. Her role is to make sure the actor is comfortable while also bringing a level of realism.
“I’m super specific about what we need from the actors in order to tell these stories authentically. I create an environment where they can be authentic with me and ask any questions,” says Monahan. For example, some stories call for a binaural microphone. The mic looks like a large face, and the actor speaks into the ears. That way, “the listener hears it as if someone’s whispering in their ear.”
Of course, people like the sound effects — but how they’re created is a trade secret, one neither Spiegel nor Monahan will share.
“We like to keep the magic alive,” says Monahan. “There’s breath work; there’s vocal range. When you find someone really attractive, the voice sits in a different place in your body. I always want the actors to separate [from themselves.] I’m not asking to hear how you orgasm. I’m asking how this character orgasms in this scene.”
