Karen@KarenCommins.com

Karen Commins

Award Winning

Atlanta Audiobook Share-rator™

Karen Commins

Karen Commins — Your Audiobook Producer

Want to create an audiobook of your book but feel overwhelmed about the process?

Concerned that you will pick the wrong narrator?

Afraid that you will need to spend hours that you don’t have in requesting changes to an unsatisfactory production?

Sit back and R-E-L-A-X!

In fact, you can head to the beach because you’ve found an experienced producer and narrator to whom you can hand off your book without worry!

Karen inside her WhisperRoom in her studio

As a full-time and Audible Approved audiobook narrator, I love interpreting your words on the printed page and creating a pristine recording that allows today’s ultra busy people to take a mental vacation. And who doesn’t need one?!

My rights holders are thrilled with the final product and the ease with which they receive it. They don’t request corrections because none are needed!

How I make the process easy for you:

🌴 Typos in the text? No problem. I say it correctly as I record. I’ll send you a list of typos that I find.

🌴 Accents? Sure! I’m a native of Atlanta and excel at Southern accents. I also research and perform other accents as needed in the text.

🌴 I’m highly selective about my audiobooks. I only audition for and accept projects when my voice and style are IN BEST SERVICE OF THE TEXT. My other titles may even help to sell your book!

🌴 Scientific or technical books? Yes! I earned a MS degree in computer information systems and worked over 25 years in highly technical IT positions. I can present your text with complete authenticity as I actually understand the words coming out of my mouth!

🌴 I strive to create the best production possible. I pay meticulous attention to detail to offer:

* Clarity
* Consistency in performance
* Compelling pacing
* Consummate editing and sound quality
* Correct pronunciations of names and places

🌴 I always supply your perfect recording within and usually ahead of the deadline.

🌴 I have a BA degree in radio and TV journalism and am an excellent writer. I can help you adapt your book to better suit an audiobook.

🌴 I have studied audiobook narration with Grammy award-winning director Paul Ruben and legendary talents Pat Fraley and Scott Brick, to name a few of my teachers.

🌴 I created an Audiobook Marketing Cheat Sheet to aid the rights holder in creating and implementing your marketing plan.

I have been hired to narrate titles in these genres:

* Biography
* Childrens
* Classic Fiction
* Contemporary Fiction
* Comedic Chick Lit
* Mysteries and Thrillers
* Romance
* Self-development

My soundproof studio shown above is outfitted with a Whisperroom and Neumann TLM 49 mic as found in top recording facilities.

You can hear my demos, see all of my titles, and read highlights of my reviews on other pages of this site.

I’m an audiobook narrator/producer who collaborates with my clients so that your story can be delivered — and remembered — in this frenzied world.

Want to hear how I’d perform your book? Contact me today for FREE audition!
Karen@KarenCommins.com
470.737.NAR8  (6278)

I Invite you to read the many articles I’ve written to aid authors.

 

The Christmas Present

My super-talented and energetic narrator friend Xe Sands had this wonderful idea:

December…the time to give thanks for those things that have sustained us through the past year. For narrators, a huge part of that is YOU, the listening community! As we wind down 2016, we want to give back to you, our listeners, who help make our job so rewarding, and who travel with us on each audiobook journey. SO! Over 60 narrators have partnered to bring you FROM THE HEART – recordings of poetry, essays, stories, excerpts, songs, etc. – throughout the month of December.

I’m so thrilled to be among this group of exceptional narrators and offer you a free reading! Today, I present “The Christmas Present” by Richmal Crompton. In this short (11:55) Christmas tale from 1922, Mary learns that the best presents don’t cost a thing.


Thanks to Xe for spearheading this project and to a favorite audiobook blogger Jennifer Connor at the Literate Housewife blog for her generous publicity of this project throughout December. I encourage you to visit Jennifer’s site to catch up on narrators and their readings from earlier in the month, as well as those to come.
Happy holidays!

Stop Complaining About Noise

In a recent Inc. Magazine article titled 7 Ways Successful People Have Better Mindsets, this quote practically leaped off the screen at me:

The biggest problem is thinking of problems as problems. Successful people know that when you focus on problems you have more problems, but when you focus on possibilities you have more opportunities.

It’s true. Our thoughts and words have tremendous creative power in shaping our lives. In fact, in one of my first blog posts 10 years ago, I wrote that nothing is more powerful on this planet than the words you think and speak. Everything that exists now was first a thought in a person’s mind. Speaking the thought out loud gives it creative power.

Wayne Dyer used to say, “What you think about expands”, and “You can’t get enough of what you don’t want.” When we’re repeatedly talking about something with energy and emotion, we’re actually telling the Universe, “please send me more of this.”

That’s great when we’re enthusiastically and excitedly talking about our latest audiobook contract or marketing plans. However, the same principle is at work when we’re animatedly griping about the leaf-blowers in the neighborhood.

An army of leaf blowers is coming soon to your neighborhood!

I can’t count the times when I’ve read posts from audiobook narrators in Facebook groups in which they whine about the external noise from the neighbors cutting their grass, planes flying overhead, nearby construction projects, or any other thing that interrupts their recording sessions. The people bemoaning these (first-world) problems seem to expect empathy from everyone else. If challenged, the complainer would say he’s merely venting off steam with people who understand the situation.

I never respond to those types of posts. If I did, I’d say, “Quit your bellyaching, and DO something about your recording space! It’s not up to the world to be quiet in order for you to have a cocoon of silence for recording.”

Before anyone gets offended at my harsh statement, let me add that I have walked in the naysayer’s shoes. In order to solve my multiple issues with an extremely noisy environment, I replaced all of the windows in my house and custom-built an additional room on my house with soundproofing techniques.

More importantly, I don’t respond because constant complaining really goes much deeper and has a more pronounced effect than most people realize.

Have you ever noticed that, when you’re sick and you tell and re-tell the story about all of your symptoms to everybody you know, you feel worse with each telling?

When I used to gripe about people yakking loudly on their cell phones or children screaming in restaurants, it seemed more and more of them would show up around me. OF COURSE THEY DID! I repeatedly focused my attention and poured lots of negative emotion in my comments about how much those situations annoyed me! I had an epiphany one day when I realized I had been saying, “We are a magnet for obnoxious children” — literally summoning the very condition I wanted to avoid!

I’ve learned — not that I’m always successful at it — that I have to keep my attention focused on WHAT I WANT, not what I don’t want.

The loud children and cell phone talkers in public are still around, but my reaction to them has changed. When I find myself getting annoyed by them or other irritants, I speak out loud affirmations like, “I am focusing my attention on what I want, which is a pleasant, enjoyable dinner.” Almost immediately, the environment — or at least my perception of it — shifts for the better.

Frequent grumbling doesn’t just steal your joy (and that of others around you) in the moment. You can be setting yourself up for an unfulfilled life.

I’ll leave you with these profound thoughts from Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear: 

Quit your complaining. It’s not the world’s fault that you wanted to be an artist. It’s not the world’s job to enjoy the films you make, and it’s certainly not the world’s obligation to pay for your dreams. Nobody wants to hear it. Steal a camera if you must, but stop whining and get back to work….

…most important, you’re scaring away inspiration. Every time you express a complaint about how difficult and tiresome it is to be creative, inspiration takes another step away from you, offended. It’s almost like inspiration puts up its hands and says, “Hey, sorry, buddy! I didn’t realize my presence was such a drag. I’ll take my business elsewhere.

…I have felt this phenomenon in my own life, whenever I start complaining. I have felt the way my self-pity slams the door on inspiration, making the room feel suddenly cold, small, and empty. That being the case, I took this path as a young person: I started telling myself that I enjoyed my work. I proclaimed that I enjoyed every single aspect of my creative endeavors—the agony and the ecstasy, the success and the failure, the joy and the embarrassment, the dry spells and the grind and the stumble and the confusion and the stupidity of it all. I even dared to say this aloud. I told the universe (and anyone who would listen) that I was committed to living a creative life not in order to save the world, not as an act of protest, not to become famous, not to gain entrance to the canon, not to challenge the system, not to show the bastards, not to prove to my family that I was worthy, not as a form of deep therapeutic emotional catharsis . . . but simply because I liked it. So try saying this: “I enjoy my creativity.” And when you say it, be sure to actually mean it.

Photo: Hector Alejandro/Flickr
 

A DEAL You Can Get Any Day And Is Good All Year

The Monday after Thanksgiving is known as Cyber Monday, when lots of people are on their computers shopping for deals. Friends, have I got a DEAL for you!

I spent the morning searching for a special item to add to one of my collections.

This prize doesn’t cost much and can be purchased for the same low price any day of the year.

I’m talking about a library card — not just any library card, mind you, but a non-resident library card.

Of course, you should start your collection of cards with one from your city or county library. Most libraries offer local residents a free card since the library is funded through tax dollars. Learn what your local library has to offer and use it.

However, you’ll discover that getting a non-resident card to a second library system may be very useful since libraries offer different digital services. You’ll want to shop around for 1 or more non-resident library cards that fit your needs.

In addition to the cost of the card, you’ll need to determine whether the library accepts on-line registrations. I viewed at least 2 dozen library sites across the country, and most libraries require you to apply in person.

The cost for a non-resident library card is usually minimal, although some places like Kalamazoo, MI charge a 3-digit figure equating to a resident’s property tax.

Once you acquire the library cards you need, their benefit to your career as an audiobook narrator can be immeasurable in at least 4 ways:

Performance

I listen to audiobooks every day. I’m not only listening to the story, but I’m critically listening to the narrator and production quality. Each one is a mini-masterclass in performance technique that aids my own interpretations.

Overdrive, Hoopla, and Recorded Books are the largest services that supply digital audiobooks to libraries. Two libraries with Overdrive accounts choose different audiobooks for their patrons to download. With multiple library cards, you’re sure to find an audiobook you want to hear.

Periodicals

I went shopping for my 2nd non-resident card this morning because I want to read Publishers Weekly (PW) magazine. Sure, I could pay the $180 subscription fee on Zinio.com to get a digital subscription or the $249.99 to Publishers Weekly for them to cut more trees and deliver the magazine to my house.

I’d rather pay much less and support a library at the same time!

I had noticed that my 2 libraries both offer magazines through their Recorded Books portal (formerly Zinio). As an aside, my libraries also have other fabulous options from Recorded Books, such as ArtistWorks for art and music instruction! Neither had Publishers Weekly in their account, so I searched Google for a library that does. I’m planning to head over to a neighboring county tomorrow and pay $30 for a year’s access on their non-resident card.

TIP: Some libraries listed PW in a PDF as an available title, but I had to look at their actual magazine page to determine whether it really was included. If they have it, be sure they are showing the current issue as I saw several sites that indicated it was limited to archives. Also, some libraries have Flipster accounts for their magazines. I don’t know whether Publishers Weekly is available from Flipster.

Polylinguist

My library cards can help me achieve my long-held goal of becoming polylingual. (Most people would say “multi-lingual”, but that word wouldn’t fit with my alliteration.) Both of my cards give me on-line access to Mángo Languages. Even if I don’t take an entire course, it’s helpful to listen to these conversations when working on accents for an audiobook.

Proficiency

I got my first non-resident card from the nearby city of Smyrna a few months ago after learning that some libraries give card holders access to the fantastic on-line training site Lynda.com.

While they aren’t audiobook-specific, the Lynda video courses are professionally created and come with a transcript and materials. You can preview the Pro Tools 12 Essential Training at this link, but classes on every popular DAW are available. In addition to courses on DAWs, Lynda offers loads of classes in marketing, social media, web site design, and other topics useful to your audiobook business.

Like the magazines, Lynda is a subscription site. You pay either monthly or yearly. They charge more for the plan that includes the exercise files. When I started with Lynda in mid-2015, I paid $34.99 per month for the courses and exercise files. Last December, I paid a discounted price of $242.89 for a year.

In contrast, my Smyrna Library card cost $50, and I get to take advantage of all the other services from the Smyrna Library as well.

As you can see, the cost savings of the library cards over the regular price of these subscriptions is a DEAL!

Do you have a library card? Please leave a comment and let me know how you use it!

 

Updated 6/6/19 to change Recorded Books and Zinio references

How to use Karen Commins’s Audiobook Twitter lists

You can easily find other audiobook publishers, bloggers, narrators, and enthusiasts by signing into Twitter and subscribing to one or more of my 4 comprehensive lists of audiobook tweeps. I believe that I have developed the most thorough lists of audiobook folks on the Internet! I continue to update these lists as I learn of people who should be included.

Each Twitter list is for reading tweets from a curated group of people. You can’t tweet to the list.

Its usefulness lies in the fact that all of these people are grouped together in one place. You’ll be able to stay focused on audiobooks and correspond with audiobook folks without following all of them individually.

To subscribe to any of my Twitter lists:

Using your browser, login to Twiitter.
Click on one of the links above.
From the List page, click Subscribe to follow the list.

You can follow lists without following the individual accounts in that list.

How to find and contact audiobook reviewers on the list

If you click on Members, you can see the description of their Twitter profile. (See the picture.) You may be able to tell at that point whether they are a good candidate to review your book.

You also can click on each one and see their tweets and link to their web site.

Once on the reviewer’s web site, you can look at their review policies and get their email address. This page from the Geeky Blogger’s Book Blog outlines details you’ll want to include in your pitch.

The publisher list has over 100 employees from various audiobook companies. The list makes it easy to reply to and/or retweet them, which is a soft and convenient way of keeping your name in front of them!

I hope this info helps! I encourage you to create your own lists of authors and others who are important to your career. You can choose to make your lists private or public. If you have other questions about Twitter lists, check out this page from the Twitter help center.

If you’d like more tips about being organized for success, check out my blog article Putting the “I’ In OrganIzed, I use Evernote.com as my info and idea storehouse. If you decide to get an Evernote account, I’d love it if you used my referral link.

 

Last updated 8/14/20 to change to new Twitter URLs

6/11/19 to include link to podcasts

19 June 2018 to correct a link, include a comment about the publisher list, and add a couple other explanatory lines

1 December 2017 to include links to Literate Housewife and Geeky Blogger’s Book Blog

 

Karen Commins’s Audiobook Marketing Cheat Sheet

Last updated 16 April 2025


Don’t you just LOVE to market your audiobooks?

I think many people would answer an emphatic NO! to that question, in part because they feel uncertain how to proceed.

This page will give you plenty of creative ideas for promoting your audiobook!

Before we get to those ideas, I want to point out that the author and publisher should do most of the marketing and promotion of the title. Even on royalty share contracts, the narrator’s role in and effect from promotion is minimal. Narrators typically have larger portfolios than authors and have shorter deadlines, making it impractical for a narrator to do prolonged and/or substantial marketing on individual books.

I hold the view that the best long-term marketing any narrator or author can do is to narrate or write their next book. Being prolific in your field improves your skills, builds the fan base of buyers (with sales and royalties to follow), and always gives you something new to promote.

In addition, authors and publishers would do well to spend the bulk of their time and money in promoting the BOOK rather than a particular edition of it. Some of the methods on this page will work very well for promoting the book, while others will help you give the audiobook greater visibility, at its release and beyond.

Visibility is the key to strong sales.

Why do audiobooks need greater visibility? I answered that question and many more in the interview I gave to Sandra Beckwith at BuildBookBuzz.com. This interview is a good place to start when you’re developing a marketing plan for your book and audiobook.

 

Distribution Channels

Many authors are expanding their distribution platforms to offer their audiobooks on as many sites as possible. The number and variety of distributors is increasing. Each offers different royalty rates, sales data update frequencies, payment frequencies, and promotional support. You may not be able to publish under your company name.

You need to do your research and pick the distributor(s) that best serve your goals. Note that you can be non-exclusive with ACX/Audible and concurrently distributing on other sites. Some to consider are:

I examined 6 popular distributors across 22 points and offered my recommendations in my Audiobook Distributor Comparison Chart, available exclusively to members of my NarratorsRoadmap.com site. 

Some authors are selling audiobooks from their own site. They use a service like Stripe.com or PayHip.com to process the payment and BookFunnel.com to distribute them.

Even if your audiobook is only available as a digital download, you can still sell it through independent bookstores (as long as you have not signed any exclusive distribution agreements) by distributing it through Libro.fm. This article outlines a number of ways that Libro.fm helps booksellers promote your audiobook. You can even become a Libro.FM affiliate and earn commissions on your sales.

Libraries are important for both discovery and sales of your books. The report on this site discusses libraries’ impact on buying and consumers’ relations with books.

Book store and libraries are looking for programming and may be willing or even eager for authors to give a talk in person or in a livestream video. If you want to do a signing but only have digital editions of your book, you could get postcards printed with your book cover and blurb.

 

Author Mentions

My article in the February 2016 issue of InD’tale Magazine, “6 Low-Cost Avenues For Greater Audiobook Sales” lists 7 ways authors can mention their audiobooks on their sites and in their newsletter mailing list (you ARE developing and maintaining a mailing list, aren’t you? Check out this 4/27/23 Bookbub author survey for info and ideas!), references my 2 ACX articles below and offers even more promotional and marketing ideas: AudiobookBoom.com (discussed below), Whispersync (explanation and video below in Other Resources), QR codes, podcasts (see this article for a case study), and radio shows.

Author Melissa Storm created this video that shows her attractive sales buttons on her site and her links on Soundcloud. She also discusses email automations to send info about your audiobooks to your mailing list.

The best type of author mention might be a Kickstarter project to secure funding to produce the audiobook! While you might not have Cory Doctorow’s reach or results, you can learn from his 3/31/23 article in Publishers Weekly.

 

Social Media and Other Tactics

I had the pleasure of being a guest writer on the ACX.com blog to discuss audiobook marketing in depth. Both articles and their comments include examples from other narrators and me.

In Part One, I explained some reasons why people are resistant to listening to audiobooks. I then offered 3 ways to make your audiobooks more discoverable to an audience, with related tactics for each:  be authentic, be consistent, and be creative.

Note that the category of being consistent includes the idea of creating an annual promotions calendar so that you have reasons to promote the audiobook at times other than the release day. I talked about my promotions calendar as one of my narrator hacks on the APA Webcast in Sept. 2020, which APA members can view on the APA site. As you can see in the picture below, my promotions calendar includes my bi-weekly newsletter to NarratorsRoadmap.com members and bi-monthly newsletter to my mailing list. I insert info about my new releases and upcoming projects in the newsletters to my mailing list.

You might be interested to read this article to see how I promoted a book 8 years after the release date based on something in it.

 

 

Part Two contains 4 more ways to promote your audiobooks, including marketing based on any locations in the book. I offer some very specific tactics on 5 social media sites (Goodreads, Twitter, Soundcloud, Facebook, YouTube) such as instructions about adding the audio edition to Goodreads and subscribing to my Twitter list of audiobook reviewers and bloggers. Be sure to read my comments for updated info about the Goodreads process. This page gives more detailed instructions about subscribing to and using my Twitter lists to find reviewers.

I created an Evernote check sheet of my minimal publicity actions, which you can view here.

This post from Kate Tilton lists 25 ideas from a March 2015 ACX Twitter chat about audiobook marketing tactics. It includes my organized Storify recap with threaded Q&As.

ACX published a great article on their blog highlighting 7 successful tips and tactics from authors interviewed at 2015 Romantic Times and BookExpo conventions.

You’ll find a growing number of groups of audiobook fans on Facebook. Be sure to read their rules and post promotions only where allowed. A few are listed below, but you can search Facebook for more generalized and genre-specific groups relevant to your topic.

You can sign up to receive the free, 3-times-daily alerts from journalists who are looking for sources for stories at Help A Reporter. I especially encourage non-fiction authors to take this step because it’s a great way to share your expertise of your topic with the media. However, fiction authors and narrators still have many opportunities to pitch their ideas and experience as a source. Review their rules for sources before responding to any of the queries. If a journalist uses your information, you can increase your publicity by sharing your media coverage as I did in this Facebook post.

 

Audible Tools

Share the link to your audiobooks listed on Audible in the most favorable light to you as I explained in this article.

You can add the Audible sample of your audiobook to your web site and social media. If you don’t have the file, you can use this free, nifty utility from narrator Steven Jay Cohen to extract the MP3 sample file from Audible’s site.

If you published your audiobook using ACX, be sure to use the bounty referral links found in your dashboard each time you post about your audiobook.

This article on the ACX blog shows you how to create a 30-day free Audible trial. The free trial may lead to an ACX bounty payment!

Once you have the audiobook in your Audible library, Audible lets you send it for FREE to as many people as you wish! The catch is that each person can only receive 1 book for free. After that point, they have to pay for books sent to them.

Best of all, Audible has created Author pages that take information from Author’s Central on Amazon. This post in the ACX blog explains how to find and share your Author page.

Per this 2019 article on The Verge, ver 100 million Amazon Alexa units have been sold worldwide. This site notes that Amazon Echos have more than 50% of the smart speaker installation base in the US. Not surprisingly, Audible has a list of audiobook-related Alexa commands.

‪
Reviews

On my AudiobookVillage.com site, you can access my exclusive Reviewers Directory that is searchable by genre and sub-genre and contains contact info, review policies, a link to a sample review and more info for each reviewer.

Publishers and authors can pay to distribute review copies to stores, libraries, journalists, and bloggers through Edelweiss+ and NetGalley.

The Literate Housewife blog offered these tips about submitting requests for reviews. This page from the Geeky Blogger’s Book Blog outlines additional details you’ll want to include in your pitch.

This blog post contains my Storify of an ACX chat about submitting your audiobooks to the premiere industry publication AudioFile Magazine for review. You can access their Review Consideration form here and from the Contact Us page on the AudioFile website.

Library Journal is a major influencer in library sales, as is the Booklist site and magazine from the American Library Association.

Publishers Weekly discontinued its audiobook reviews but started including audio clips with web reviews of the print book. Contact the person named in this article if you’re interested.

AudiobookJukebox.com is an incredible site that indexes thousands of audiobook reviews for all genres. You only have to fill out a simple form to request a review. Reviewers can check the list and request your title if they are interested in it.

AudiobooksUnleashed.com is the brainchild of narrator Sarah Sampino. She automated the fulfillment process of promo code distribution. You load your codes on the listing page, and the site gives one to each listener requesting the audiobook. You can even re-load the codes. A nice value-add is the addition of your mailing list sign-up form.

A similar code fulfillment site AudioFreebies.com created by narrator Amy Soakes allows you to specify whether your promo codes are ACX/Audible or FindawayVoices/AuthorsDirect.

The popular FreeAudiobookCodes.com site (formerly known as AudiobookBoom.com) was developed by audiobook narrator Jeffrey Kafer. It’s like BookBub but is for audiobook promotion. You can advertise your audiobook on this site and use your ACX promo codes to give copies of your audiobook to eager listeners in exchange for a review.

Thanks to the efforts of narrator and audiobook columnist Ann Richardson, InD’tale Magazine accepts audiobooks for review.

Fellow narrator Paul Heitsch created this document that lists sites for audiobook reviews. This Google doc of Audiobook Marketing Resources lists additional reviewers and was created for a panel at the 2017 Romantic Times Convention by narrator Karen White, bloggers Felicia Sparks and Viviana Izzo, and Michele Cobb, the executive director of the Audio Publishers Association.

You can find other reviewers and bloggers on Twitter by subscribing to my Twitter list of audiobook reviewers and bloggers. This post shows you how to subscribe and use the list.

I’ve interviewed several blogger reviewers. You can read those interviews at this link.

In this video, author Chris Fox describes his successful tactic of giving away a significant number of review copies to gain a spot in the top 20 in the Audible category. As I explain in this comment, I advise you against guaranteeing that every person requesting a free audiobook will receive one.

 

Advertising

BookBub has announced ChirpBooks, its audiobook promotion service for limited time price cuts. You need to distribute your audiobook through Findaway Voices in order to fulfill orders from Chirp because other distributors don’t allow you to set or change your audiobook price. You can submit a Chirp deal on this page. You can even promote your Chirp listing with a BookBub ad. This webinar explains how to apply for and maximize your Chirp deal. Both authors and narrators can even add “Follow Me on Chirp” buttons and icons to your web sites as described in this article.

This article shows 12 BookBub audiobook ads that they say achieved high click-through rates.

You can pay to advertise your audiobook in AudioFile’s Indie Press Showcase.

If you’d like to run Facebook ads for your audiobooks, Melissa Storm covers them in her paid course.

You can use the Bookfunnel service to advertise and deliver short audio to others. Delivery of complete audiobooks is still in beta.

 

Awards

In this article, audiobook narrator and columnist Ann Richardson explores many of the awards available for audiobooks. I want to highlight 2 awards programs to make you aware of their deadlines:

  1. The Call For Entries in the annual prestigious Audies competition, sponsored by the Audio Publishers Association, usually begins in late June.
  2. The Voice Arts Awards, presented by the Society of Voice Arts and Sciences, has entry deadlines (before late fees) running from May to August each year.

As Audie winners commented in this article, you can update your cover art to show the award designation and the audiobook’s description to include information about its awards.

 

Other Resources

When I was a guest on Stephen Campbell’s The Author Biz podcast to talk about audiobook marketing and promotion, I mentioned the ripple effect of BookBub ads for ebooks. As I demonstrate in this 3:03 video, Amazon has created technology called Whispersync that enables you to seamlessly go between the ebook and audiobook or even immerse yourself in both concurrently. Many avid listeners will acquire an Amazon Kindle ebook when it is free or heavily discounted in order to buy the Audible audiobook on Amazon at a lower price. In fact, the ripple effect is so high that the money made on the audiobook royalties following the promotion oftentimes pays the cost of the BookBub ad!

Audiograms are short videos that consist of an audio file added to a picture, like the one shown below. The visible audio wave on the image(s) can be attention-getting on social media. Be aware of the video duration limits set each social media platform.

In this article, narrator and publisher Steven Jay Cohen explains their use and a free audiogram generator named Headliner. I used the service Wavve.co to create the audiogram in this tweet. Wavve lets you create one 1-minute video per month for free; they offer a sliding scale of prices for additional videos. The site allows you to choose different shapes and colors for the wave form, and the support team was super responsive when I ran into an issue with the progress bar not lighting as expected.

You could include your audiograms or other audio samples in your messages sent to your mailing list. This article, which is aimed at podcasters, discusses that audiograms seem better at building brand awareness on social media more than generating click-throughs to the product.

You also could run a contest associated with a new release. This email from narrator Scott Brick gives a great example you could follow.

It’s important to size graphics appropriately for each site. To create interesting and unique images, you might want to use the graphics on BookBrush.com, which has various template book-related mock-ups, or Canva.com.

You could also make or hire someone to produce a video trailer to promote the audiobook. I’ve written text and created a trailer describing the audiobook and others like this one and this one where I used a snippet from the audiobook’s narration and timed the videos and images to go with it. You can share your videos anywhere you’d share an audiogram. Unless you already have lots of followers, though, be aware that getting eyeballs on your trailer could require its own marketing plan!

You might decide to hire someone to help you with specific marketing for your audiobook. Prolific narrator-turned-author Karen White offers an array of services and packages at her site HomeCookedBooks.com.

Members of the ACX Narrators and Producers group on Facebook may also want to check the FAQ in the group’s pinned post. I created the FAQ from that group’s discussions, and it contains 5 excellent discussions about audiobook marketing that may reveal additional tactics. Note that you must have a profile on ACX in order to join the group.

I also recommend that you join the Marketing Audiobooks Wide group on Facebook. Authors and audio rights holders discuss tactics that have worked for them.

Obviously, marketing is such a broad topic and is subject to one’s availability and creativity that I couldn’t possibly write about or include every idea. 

For instance, I don’t have much to say about Pinterest. I pin the audiobook cover on a board of my titles, and I like seeing which titles have been re-pinned. Authors and publishers also use Instagram and other sites to promote their titles.

Rather than being on every social media channel, I stick with the few I enjoy using. It takes time to build a following, and I hold to the belief that “scattered thinking leads to scattered results”!

You’ll find good examples of many tactics discussed in this post in this Bookbub article. Author Penny Reid described her experiences with using these ideas in this post on the BookBub blog.

By steadily employing multiple techniques from this page to promote your audiobooks over time, you’re sure to have consistent sales!