This time, we’ll talk about the Financial Considerations section of the Quiz. I was taught to never discuss money in a job interview until you know you are a good fit for the position. I saved this section until the end for the same reason.

What are your financial expectations?

While it’s true that your earnings potential as a narrator rests in part with your drive and determination, it’s also true that most new narrators don’t make enough money to live off their narration business for an undetermined number of years.

Audiobooks are paid per finished hour (PFH). If your rate is $200 PFH, you would earn $2,000 for a book that runs 10 hours. However, your actual time spent in recording the book will be longer than 10 hours. Refer to this article for a more in-depth explanation about the time needed to produce an audiobook and this one for info about computing your per finished hour rate.

Just because you’re new doesn’t mean you should accept rates below $100 PFH. The union minimum on ACX is $250PFH. When you figure your real-time hourly rate, you shouldn’t discover you’re charging minimum wage or lower.

Note that you should have some experience before you ever consider declaring yourself a professional audiobook narrator! You may need to do some volunteer work for the blind in addition to gaining audiobook-specific training as I discussed in part 1 of this series.

In order to gain the attention of authors and publishers who actually have decent budgets — particularly those with SAG/AFTRA agreements (note that union membership qualifies you for other benefits such as health insurance) — you first need to develop a portfolio of solid titles, by which I mean you should record books in popular genres that have finished times of at least 6-8 hours. You may choose to take some projects on a royalty share (RS) contract in order to gain more experience.  I wrote extensive articles about RS projects here and here.

In addition to possibly taking low-paying and/or speculative work at the start of your career, you should assess what you’re willing to sacrifice in order to pursue this work. I know people who worked a day job, narrated in their off hours, and only slept 3-4 hours for several years. They didn’t leave the day job until their narration income could fully support them.

I’m not saying you have to follow suit. Instead, you must realize that your progress probably will be slower than you would like or hope.

If it were easy, everybody would do it.

Have you ever worked as a freelancer?

I probably should have asked this question first! If you’re used to a steady paycheck and benefits like paid sick days, you may be in for a major shock when you become a freelancer.

You can do a Google search and find numerous articles outlining the advantages and disadvantages of being a freelancer. I’ll point out a few of the downsides:

• Your workload is uncertain and often can be a feast or famine situation. Many narrators say yes to every project and risk their health because they want to ensure they have money even during the worst dry spells for work. In those cases, personal and/or vacation time often gets pre-empted by a must-do book.
• Some people can’t tolerate the uncertainty about payment and therefore always work at least one other job to maintain their lifestyle.
• Without the guarantee of money coming in, you may start doing work like lawn or house care that you previously hired another person to do. You also are responsible for all aspects of running your business, including invoicing the clients and making timely tax payments to the IRS.
• Health care costs, including insurance premiums, continue to rise.

Be sure you’re fully aware of the pros and cons to this type of work before you commit to it as your sole job.

Do you have a day job or other monetary cushion to see you through slow times?

Most people starting as audiobook narrators do so on a part-time basis. While a day job limits your availability, it also frees you of the stress and pressure to show an immediate profit while providing other benefits to you. Retirees from other fields who are drawing an annuity also tend to have an easier time starting a second career as an audiobook narrator.

Even the most successful, highly lauded, experienced narrators occasionally have periods of weeks or even months where they don’t have work. It’s important to always have contingency and emergency funding sources.

Do you have money set aside for start-up and on-going business costs?

Audiobook narration is a BUSINESS. Like any business, it has start-up and on-going costs, including equipment, software, coaching, internet connection, web site, and marketing materials.

If you don’t have enough money on-hand for your business expenses, whether now or in the future, I encourage you to do the empowering exercise described in this article.

How do you feel about constantly networking and marketing yourself to attract and retain clients?

Narrating a book is the reward for doing the REAL job — regularly informing those who could hire you of your talent, abilities, and availability.

How would you make yourself stand out and be memorable in an already crowded marketplace? Sending email after email may not gain any traction, especially when you’re new to the industry. As I wrote in the last article, publishers hire you only after they decide they can trust you.

One of the surest ways to help people to learn to trust you is to meet them in person. People who live in and around NYC and LA have an advantage in getting to industry events as most of the big audiobook production facilities are located in those 2 cities. The rest of us travel to other cities for conferences, mixers, and workshops. I recommend that you join the Audio Publishers Association to be alerted about member events across the USA.

Obviously, you also should be alert to events occurring in your city. For instance, the American Library Association holds twice-yearly conferences in different cities. Audiobook publishers and producers attend those conferences, so you might be able to connect with your prospects there.

When doing auditions, don’t expect to hear back from the casting person unless you get the job. TV star Bryan Cranston perfectly and succinctly explains this point in this 1:22 video.

Do you have or can you make a dedicated recording space in your home?

You need a dead-quiet space to record a pristine audiobook. Sound isolation and sound proofing materials can be expensive. You may also need to pay for consultations with studio and other technical advisors who can help you achieve an optimum sound for your space.

If you don’t have such a space available, you would need to rent studio time and pay an engineer for actual, not finished, hours to record the project. You would need to get rates in your local area in order to create a budget.

Now that we’ve examined the factors in becoming a successful audiobook narrator, what are your thoughts? Did the quiz help you decide whether to pursue audiobook narration as a career? Did the quiz raise more questions for you? I’d love to hear from you in a comment below!

The post Analyzing the Audiobook Narrator Self-Assessment Quiz Part 4 appeared first on Karen Commins.

During and after the video broadcast, I chatted with viewers. As usual for the Queen of Links, I shared a number of resources in that chat session. I also answered a number of questions.

While the chat is embedded with the video, I wanted to post all of the ancillary material and discussion here on my blog to make it easier to reference. That way, you can watch the video and not worry about missing anything.

Links to resources I mentioned in the video with time stamps:

3:51 My article outlining 10 questions to ask coaches and demo producers  I would also refer you to a more recent article Is This Coach Right For Me?

7:51 Audio Publishers Association

9:36 Sisters in Crime

9:47 Decatur Book Festival

10:36 Barbara Sher’s fabulous book Wishcraft

12:04 Facebook groups for narrators:

• Audiobook Crowd
• Indie (ACX and Others) Narrators and Producers Facebook group I referred to it as the ACX  group in the video. After you join the Indie/ACX FB group, be sure the check the extensive group FAQ, which I created and maintain.
• Narrating Audio Books from the Public Domain
• Professional Audiobook Narrators is not visible to the general public. A current member must add you, and you must have done 10+ books to be approved.
• Findaway Voices Narrators I didn’t name it in the video, but you’ll want to join it if you narrate for Findaway Voices.

13:18 C. J. Hayden’s Get Clients Now! book

13:43 C. J. Hayden’s Business Building Writing workshop

14:23 Krista Tippett’s “On Being” interview with Seth Godin

Other links I shared in the chat:

I send newcomers to audiobook narration to this article.

Someone in the chat mentioned being an introvert. I replied that lots of narrators are introverts, including me! Here’s an article of 3 networking tips for introverts. I still smile at the graphic I created for that post!

Links on ACX:

My ACX profile

My articles on the ACX blog:

• How to Act Like an Audiobook Narrator
• A Narrator’s Look at Audiobook Marketing – Part One
• A Narrator’s Look at Audiobook Marketing – Part Two

ACX U Chat Questions and Answers

Rather than merely copying the questions and answers in the order they appeared, I’m going to resequence them and group related questions together to make them more organized and digestible. Of course, I’ll add links to this info as well, which is another bonus of viewing it here instead of in the chat window.

Q: When you started, did you start with shorter auditions? Or just plunge into what you were interested in?
A: The AUDITION is short, no more than 5 minutes, but the BOOK never was. Starting with a short book seems intuitive but really is counter-productive long term. Many ACX producers take short books to get their feet wet, and usually those books don’t look good in their portfolio 7 years later. I would say to start with REAL books like mysteries, romances, etc. no matter the length.

Q: How detailed do you get with your notes for intention/feeling? Do you evaluate by chapter only, or do you get as detailed as marking each paragraph with an intention or feeling?
A: I used to mark up my texts in different colors for every line of dialogue but now find that too distracting. I underline dialogue tags that describe the emotion, like “she said angrily”. I might write a quick description of the emotion in a scene, or something about the subtext to remember, but usually I remember the emotions from my prep.

Q: So, you’ve trained your eyes to see the underlined dialogue tag, even if it comes later than the dialogue?
A: Yes, for the most part, but I do underline some tags during prep.

Q: Do you self-direct or always have a separate director?
A: I’m blessed that my husband Drew directs all of my performances and even most of my auditions. If I didn’t have him, I’d team up with another narrator to direct each other. Having a 2nd set of ears hearing everything and someone to discuss the text with makes the performance more accurate and emotionally rich!

Q: What was the self-directing game changer for you? Could be a technique or a moment where things really clicked and you could see a noticeable change in your narration.
A: Paul Ruben’s narrator workshop was a game changer. He pushes you to be more emotionally invested in each and every word from the author — what he calls “upping the stakes”. He also teaches you to mine the subtext for your approach to the performance. You make think you’re going overboard on the emotion, but may not come across that way to the listener.

Q: Do you ever have a concern of coming across as “hammy” in a performance? And how do you assess that?
A: No, I don’t have that concern because I view fictional characters as real people and act them that way. You can’t just “do a voice” for a character. That’s when it starts to sound like a caricature.

Q: What do you mean by “you can’t just ‘do a voice’ for a character”? Do you mean that can’t be the only thing you do to differentiate that character’s personality?
A: Doing a voice” is different than “being a character”. So many things in the text will tell you about the character’s personality that it helps you shape their voice, rhythm, and speech.

Q: What is your process for maintaining consistency of characters over the reading process?
In my prep, I figure out who the character is. I wrote a post on the ACX blog discussing that process. [See section 2 of this article.] While recording, I make and save WAV files of each character.

Q: Why save WAV files instead of just saving in the native format of the app, e.g., Audacity project files?
A: If it’s a WAV, I don’t have to stop one project and load another to hear a voice match.

Q: During 3rd person narrations of a book, how much emotion or “character” do you assign to those portions?
A: The 3rd person narrator definitely has a point of view and is often in everyone’s mind (for fiction). You can really mine the subtext for characters’ emotions for a nuanced performance.

Q: Have you done any Non-Fiction books? If so, how is your approach different?
A: Yes, I LOVE non-fiction books! In fact, ROAD TO TARA: THE LIFE OF MARGARET MITCHELL by Anne Edwards is nominated for a Voice Arts Award in Audiobook Biography! Non-fiction still requires ACTING and being emotionally committed to the author’s words. In many ways, it’s more difficult than fiction because you have to speak with the author’s knowledge and confidence. Plus, non-fic books often require lots of pronunciation research. My approach is pretty much the same for any book — you have to emotionally connect.

Q: We have been having a bit of a back and forth re: nonfiction reads. Do you read the whole book beforehand in nonfiction like you must to in fiction?
A: PRE-READ THE WHOLE BOOK EVERY TIME. No exceptions. If you don’t know where the author is taking you, regardless of fiction/non-fic, how could you possibly expect to take the listener along with you?

Q: When you find your focus straying, what do you do to stay focused on the narration?
A: I usually take a quick break out of the booth. If something’s bothering me, I might write it down in my journal. If it’s summer and thoughts of being in the pool keep me unfocused on my work, I get in the pool!

Q: Are certain times of the day better for your voice for recording? Like, more energy in the morning?
A: Vocal energy and resonance depends on each person and things like your previous night’s sleep, hydration, stress, etc. I hope everyone knows they shouldn’t scream at concerts (sorry Barry Manilow!)

Q: The dullest of geeky questions – what mic do you generally use for audiobooks?
A: It’s not dull, and I worked a career in IT, so I’m a geek, too! I have only had 1 mic throughout my vo/narration career: a Neumann TLM 103. [As of Jan. 2019, I upgraded to a Neumann TLM 49.]

Q: What’s inspiring you today? (This one and the next from AudibleACX as we wrapped up)
A: We just moved to a new house, so I’m being inspired by seeing boxes getting unpacked and art hung on the walls! The studio was the first thing we did and looks gorgeous!

Q: We definitely need pics!
A: Absolutely! We ran out of time during my session, so I didn’t post these photos in the chat. I’m delighted to share them here.

Labor Day weekend 2005 was the first time we assembled my WhisperRoom. We spent Labor Day weekend 2018 in WhisperRoom assembly, take 2!

The booth has over 40 pieces and weighs over a ton once assembled. Drew did all of the disassembly at our previous house and reassembly in the new one, with only minor help from me: steadying pieces while he screwed bolts, and lifting the ceiling panels into place. We had the moving crew transport the disassembled WhisperRoom when they moved our furniture.

In the above picture, Drew joins the 2 floor panels on top of the base on casters. We left the casters on the frame during the move. The photo below shows him putting the last screws in the ceiling about 4.5 hours later.

Here’s a pano shot of the new studio! I’m in the booth. My executive producer Yogi is facing Drew, who stopped directing to take this picture.

The post ACX U – Acting With Intention appeared first on Karen Commins.

Each year, the Audio Publishers Association hosts an informative conference for its members. I was unable to attend this year due to family concerns. However, thanks to the many tweets from ACX.com and other participants today, I almost feel like was there!

Using Storify, I chronologically sorted all of the #APAC2017 tweets about these 5 sessions of interest to audiobook narrators:

1. APAC 2017 Keynote with Tom Webster + Bonus Content
2. Getting to the Next Level
3. Marketing Techniques
4. Ask A Casting Director
5. Building Your Brand

Technology is such a wonderful thing! Enjoy!

SaveSave

The post Recaps From 5 APAC 2017 Sessions appeared first on Karen Commins.

PLEASE NOTE: Some of these links are no longer valid. If you find a broken link, please leave a comment or send me an email. I will update this page as soon as possible. Thanks for your help and patience.

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.

I also highly recommend you read and follow narrator Christa Lewis’s wonderful guide called Audiobook Marketing for (frazzled) Authors. It leads you step-by-step through developing a marketing plan based on where you are in the audiobook production process.

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:

• ACX.com
• BigHappyFamilyAudio.com
• InAudio.com
• Ingram.com
• PublishDrive.com
• SpokenRealms.com

I examined 9 popular distributors across 31 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.

• Audiobook Addicts
• Audiobook Lovers
• Audio Books!
• Audio Books Rock!
• Aural Fixation

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 comprehensive article, I explore 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!

The post Karen Commins’s Audiobook Marketing Cheat Sheet appeared first on Karen Commins.

I had such fun in creating this 2:01 video, which premiered today on the Audiobook Community Facebook page. I hope you enjoy it! If you also love audiobooks, please tell me your favorite audiobook in the comments. I’m always searching for my next good listen!

The post I #LoveAudiobooks! appeared first on Karen Commins.

I debated about listing all of the panelists’ names below as I believe in giving credit where it’s due. I decided not to include the names because a main value in attending the conference is to meet and learn from people who are in a position to hire narrators. My freely sharing all that was said and the names and positions of those influential people would not be fair to the narrators who paid the conference and associated travel costs.

Instead, I’ll share 3 of my take-aways from the day and offer 2 ideas to help you plan for future similar networking opportunities.

Take-aways

1. Find a way to offer video in support of your brand.

Yoel Flohr, a longtime leader in digital media, gave the keynote presentation about the ever-increasing need to incorporate video in support of your brand, whether you’re a publisher or narrator.
Surprisingly, I don’t recall that he used any video in his presentation. Instead, he discussed numerous figures about the staggering amount of video content uploaded each day and the number of users and views for several media channels. He stated that half of all usage is mobile.
He noted that you should not expect to make money directly from your videos for the next 3 years. However,  Flohr maintained that video is the way to stay relevant.
He suggested that you super-serve a niche audience. You need to think like a network TV programmer, meaning that posting new content consistently and regularly is crucial for your success.

2. Create and maintain a narrator web site separate from your commercial work.

I attended 2 panel discussions of great interest to narrators:  Getting To the Next Level, and Ask A Casting Director. Panelists in both sessions made numerous comments about narrator web sites, noting that narrator sites are increasingly important in casting decisions as they show you are a professional performer.

I heard the following advice:

• All of the panelists prefer to receive links to clips rather than samples attached in email.
• Make sure your site is responsive on desktop, laptop, tablet, and phone browsers.
• Include on your site information about your recording environment, language fluency, accents, and musical training.
• If your site links to your social media profiles, only link to those sites you use professionally, such as LinkedIn. Keep your business and personal content separate.
• One casting director said it’s easier for them to send an author to a specific sample on your site rather than referring them to a narrator’s profile on Audible.

3.  Be a problem-solver, not a problem.

Casting directors are extremely busy people. It’s their job to find new talent; they are always hoping to find the perfect person to narrate each book.

They offered a number of ways that narrators can help them, including:

• Be judicious in sending follow-up messages. Unless you have something big to report, every 2-3 months is probably frequent enough contact.
• Learn how to manage your time so that you are not overcommitted on project deadlines or straining your voice.
• Respond very quickly with your best read to audition requests from casting directors, but don’t ask for or expect to receive feedback.

Networking Tips

Here are 2 ideas to help you maximize your future networking opportunities.

1. Set goals for the event BEFORE you go.

Between the educational workshops or panels and the individual discussions, a conference quickly can become overwhelming, especially to an introvert like me. When I say I’m an introvert, I don’t mean I’m shy — far from it. I’m introverted in the sense of how I draw energy and process information, as explained in this article in The Atlantic and this one from the Huffington Post.

When I haven’t created a goal before a networking event, I’m likely to come home with the thought that my time — and money, if I traveled — wasn’t spent well. I’ve learned that I need to decide in advance:

• the presentations I’m most excited to attend and those I can skip
• the 3 people whom I most want to meet

Why only 3 people? First, I research the people I want to meet so I know something about them. In addition, at a conference like APAC with hundreds of people milling about, actually finding the 3 particular people can be difficult!

Your number might be different. The important point is to know who you want to meet and actively look for them. I usually meet far more than the 3 people I was seeking, which is always a wonderful bonus!

Conferences are also a time to catch up with industry friends. I was delighted to see so many narrators I know from our on-line groups, and I wish I could’ve spent quality time with all of them!

One of my goals this year was to finally meet my friend Ann M. Richardson in person. Ann and I have been partners in writing a monthly column about audiobooks for InD’tale Magazine for the past year. While we’ve had many video chats, we hadn’t actually met in person until this APAC! We started texting early in the day so we could find each other and get a picture together!

2. Remember it’s not all about you.

It would be easy to go to a conference or networking event with only my goals in mind. However, I firmly believe it’s better to give than receive, or put another way:

What you put out in the world comes back to you,
usually in a time and way that you don’t expect. 

That thought has always compelled me to help others as much as possible, and the Universe returns the energy to me in some other way. While it was exciting to meet the 3 people in my plan, I was very pleased to be able to introduce some people to each other, knowing they would be good connections for each other. I also enjoyed talking with other narrators and giving them ideas about people to contact and projects to undertake.

Do you have memories of APAC or networking tips to share? Please leave a comment on the blog!

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