Congratulations! You’ve got a brand new audiobook! It’s time to get the word out about it!

I minored in marketing while in college and have always loved to think about marketing ideas. Sandra Beckwith at BuildBookBuzz.com recently asked me a number of questions related to audiobook marketing. Our interview was posted today, and you can read it here.

A while back, I wrote 2 articles on the ACX.com blog to address this very topic. 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, including an invaluable site to use when developing a promotions calendar.

Part Two contains 4 more ways to promote your audiobooks and includes some very specific tactics about several social media sites, such as instructions about adding the audio edition of your title to Goodreads and subscribing to my Twitter list of audiobook reviewers and bloggers.

While I encourage you to mine those articles and their comments for their wealth of actionable steps, I’m excited to share these 6 low-cost avenues of audiobook promotion.

Author Mentions

The number one thing that any author can do to sell your audiobook is to consistently alert your fans that you have an audiobook available!

Any time you promote your book, make it a habit to say that the audiobook is also available.

I have been astonished and dismayed by the number of audio rights holders who use ACX to create their audiobooks but then do little or nothing to promote the finished product. The audiobook won’t sell itself!

Some narrators like me heavily promote our titles. However, narrators generally can’t spend much energy marketing any one book as we are constantly recording the next one. The author is the person who wrote the words in the book and has the fan base who most wants to know about — and is most likely to buy — an audiobook edition.

Here are some easy ways to constantly update your fans specifically about your audiobooks:

• Write progress reports on your blog during audiobook production.
• Add a blurb about or even a link to your audiobook in the front matter of your other editions.
• Create a sales page on your web site specifically for your audiobooks, or add links to the audiobooks along with the print editions on your site. Include the audiobook “buy” links from Amazon, Audible, and iTunes every time you mention the book (your web site, blog, social media, interviews elsewhere, etc.)
• Notify your email list about all new audiobook releases.
• Conduct an audiobook event on Facebook to celebrate release day or some other occasion in your promotions calendar.
• Host a Google Hangout On Air or a Zoom chat with your narrator and invite your fans to participate in the live stream. Fans love to have a look behind the scenes! Once the event is over, the recorded video of the Hangout is posted on YouTube. You and your narrator could then share that video on your blogs and social media sites for even more coverage.

Audiobook Boom

The popular AudiobookBoom.com site is the brainchild of  fellow audiobook narrator Jeffrey Kafer. Audiobook Boom is kind of like BookBub in that it is a paid service where authors and publishers highlight certain titles. However, Audiobook Boom is only for audiobook promotion, and the weekly email newsletters are sent to subscribers who are audiobook listeners.

You pay $10 per title for a  Listen & Review ad. If you used ACX to create your audiobook, you will automatically receive 25 Audible promo codes so you can give copies of your audiobook to eager listeners. With a Listen & Review ad, you’ll quickly receive a number of requests for your book from people who are willing to review it.

Whispersync

If you publish an edition of your book in Amazon’s Kindle format, your audiobook is eligible for the Whispersync feature. This amazing technology allows people to switch seamlessly between the Kindle ebook and the Audible audiobook.

I created a 3-minute video that demonstrates Whispersync in action.

Whispersync also increases sales of both editions. Amazon offers a discount on the audiobook if the buyer first purchases the Kindle edition. In fact, some people will buy the Kindle book simply to get the audiobook at a discount.

If you promote your free ebook on services like BookBub, you can expect to see an immediate ripple effect of sales of your audiobook edition. For instance, a recent Kindle Free ad on BookBub resulted in over 300 audiobook units sold the same day! The royalties from the audiobook sales might easily exceed the cost of the BookBub listing!

QR Codes

You’ve probably seen the square black and white boxes on coupons, in magazines, on store shelves, and on actual products. These boxes are called Quick Response, or QR, codes, and you can create a QR code on-line for free.

QR codes link to some content of your choosing on-line and can create a deeper level of engagement with a fan. People with smart phones can use an app that takes a picture of the QR code and immediately sends them to your link.

You could print the image of a QR code on a business card, postcard or flyer that you mail or hand out at your live events. If you have a print edition of your book, you could include a QR code in it.

After scanning your QR code in her phone app to read them, the recipient’s browser opens to the link you used when creating the QR code. For example, you might create a QR code link that sends people to your audiobook edition on Audible, plays the MP3 of the audiobook retail sample, or calls up the YouTube video of your Google Hangout with your narrator.

As you can see in these pictures, I have a QR code on the back of my business cards. Once scanned, my QR code will bring up my web site in the phone browser.

Podcasts

A podcast is defined as a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player.

With the proliferation of smart phones, podcasts are enjoying increased visibility and popularity, and they are a perfect platform for audiobook promotion!

In a Kindle Direct Publishing newsletter, author Hal Elrod, who has sold over 100,000 copies of his self-published ebook, said, “I can confidently say that the number one key to driving book sales has been securing interviews on other people’s podcasts!”

He further commented, “A great place to start is to look on iTunes in the “New and Noteworthy” section to find podcasters who are new (so they’re not inundated with requests) but are gaining a lot of momentum and listeners. Google them, go to their websites, and reach out to tell them how you and your book would add extraordinary value for their audiences!”

You can also seek out interviews on established podcasts. Harper Audio Presents usually features author interviews, even if the author was published elsewhere. In fact, you’ll find many more terrific podcast possibilities by looking in the iTunes store under Podcasts/Art/Literature.

You even can create your own podcast and host it on your web site and/or Soundcloud. For instance, my colleague Ann Richardson and I recorded each of our InD’ear columns and uploaded the recordings to our Narrators Helping Authors Soundcloud account. If you hold a Google hangout with your narrator and/or fans, you can extract the audio and repurpose it as a podcast.

Radio Shows

A podcast interview is valuable experience and can definitely drive sales, but a real radio station has many more listeners. However, unless you’re a celebrity author, the media probably won’t come looking for you. As with podcasts, you can contact local radio stations and ask to be a guest on a show.

According to morning show host Wayne Kelly, the key to booking radio interviews is that you do NOT want to approach the producers as an author promoting a book! The producer could fear booking an introverted author who would provide no value to the listeners. Instead, you would position yourself as someone who increases audience interest with your specialized insight and comments about current stories.

First, keep a list of topics covered in your book. Authors who research topics for fictional stories would develop expertise in those areas. When it’s time to publicize the book and audiobook, look for hot topics in the news which tie into your subject matter knowledge.

Google stations in your locale. You then can find them on social media and/or call the station to ask for the email address of the person who books the most interviews.

As you can see, you can market your audiobook with your book and as a standalone product. Want even more ideas for audiobook marketing? You’ll find them on my Audiobook Marketing Cheat Sheet! If you have questions, please leave a comment on the blog or book a personal consultation on my Shop page.

Most of this article originally appeared in the February 2016 issue of InD’Tale Magazine. I’ve updated some of the info and links.

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The post 6 Low-Cost Avenues For Greater Audiobook Sales appeared first on Karen Commins.

In my last article for narrators, I wrote about 3 ways to become a computer super user. One piece of software that all audiobook narrators need is a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). Coaches and new narrators often ask me where they can learn how to use their DAW.

The 7 options listed below in no particular order will help you learn the DAW software.

1) The Deyan Institute offers classes in Pro Tools for Production and Pro Tools for Post-Production, as well as an option for 6 hours of Pro Tools instruction.

2) Edge Studio offers webinars in Audition, Audacity, Pro Tools, Reaper, and Twisted Wave.

3) Global Voice Acting Academy has several webinars on recording and occasionally offers classes.

4)  Lynda.com is a FANTASTIC site with professionally produced video courses on Pro Tools, Audition, and Studio One, plus tons of other courses on things like WordPress, marketing, etc. Anyone can get a free 10-day trial using this (affiliate) link.You may be able to access Lynda for FREE with a library card as described in this article.

5) YouTube overflows with how-to videos for numerous DAWS. One excellent source for Studio One videos is the Red Baarns channel created by audio engineer Don Baarns. He also has created tutorials that show how to use iZotope RX products to clean up your audio.

6) Udemy.com offers a number of courses in Audacity, Adobe Audition, Reaper, and Pro Tools. I haven’t used any of these courses, but some of them look pretty comprehensive.

7) You might find a course at a local college or hire a student to teach you. For example, I took an enrichment class on Pro Tools offered on successive Saturdays at the Art Institute of Atlanta.

By the way, if you learn the basic shortcuts keys discussed in the previous article, you have a head start as they will work in your DAW!

Updated 4/19/18 to remove links to deleted courses on VoiceOverExtra. com and add the link to Udemy.com

The post 7 Places to Learn Audio Editing for Audiobooks appeared first on Karen Commins.

I knew this wouldn’t be a typical interview when I saw 2 questions:

1. How much money do you make?
2. What do you use the money for?

I realized that she wanted to interview people with side jobs rather than full-time occupations. It turns out that she was writing a column named “Easy Money” and was surveying multiple ways to make money that are associated with books. Her editor had seen listings on Upwork.com where people are looking for audiobook narrators and thought this job would be a good one to add.

I told her that I didn’t want to be included in her story because audiobook narration and production are definitely NOT ways to earn easy money!

As you learned in this article, narration is not as easy as reading aloud. Authors who are new to audiobooks are often shocked at the cost of production.

Also, due to the dramatic growth of the audiobook industry, authors perceive that sales for audio editions are easily made without much or any effort. I therefore thought it would be good to write an article this week about 3 financial aspects of audiobook production so authors can have realistic expectations.

1. It might take years to show a profit.

First of all, understand that audiobooks are a long game. One author said on-line that she had “lost money” because she hadn’t recouped her costs of audiobook production within a year. I wanted to tell her that she needed to view it with this mindset: her money was not lost, but it was used for a capital investment in her business. Capital investments often take many years to pay out.

If you need instant gratification, must recoup your investment immediately, and/or don’t have funds to meet your living expenses, you should wait to produce your audiobook.

While you can and should do things to specifically market the audio edition, you still must market the BOOK in order for it to gain visibility and sales.

When I say the book must be marketed, I mean you have to expend more energy and (probably) money than just posting about your book on social media or changing the sales price. Simply tweeting about the book or even the audio edition of it won’t do much, if anything, to move the sales needle. Repeated tweets on the same subject don’t gain much attention and become part of the noise. And changing the price makes no difference if you don’t have a way to attract people to your sales page.

For every 10 ebooks you sell, you might sell one audiobook. Royalties are paid based on the revenue received from the purchase price, not the full retail price. You might earn $2-4 for each audiobook sold, so you can see it could take a while for the audiobook to start earning a profit.

2. Royalty Share contracts aren’t for everybody.

In breaking down the expenses for audiobook production, the narrator’s fee is usually the largest cost. To get around this obstacle, ACX.com allows audio rights holders to set up royalty share (RS) contracts with the narrator. The narrator isn’t paid anything up front. Her fee is deferred to her half of the royalties paid each month.

To an author, royalty share contracts look like free narration and an easy (there’s that word again) way to produce an audiobook.

To a narrator, though, a royalty share contract looks like the author doesn’t have confidence that her audiobook will sell enough copies to earn back the costs of production. The author makes money from all of the editions. The narrator only makes money from the audiobook and therefore is shouldering all of the risk for low or no sales on an RS contract.

One author was quite miffed with me when I said I could not accept her offer of royalty share plus $30 per finished hour because I would still be in the red for my editor’s fee and didn’t think I’d earn back my narration fee.

Before answering her, I had analyzed her Amazon sales rank and reviews for ALL of her books — not just the one she wanted to produce in audio. I told her that I wasn’t convinced she had sufficient selling power for me to take the risk of earning back my narration fee and the full cost of my editing. I told her I could do the book for my per finished hour rate or on a royalty share contract with a much higher author stipend.

She told me my rate was was misleading and that I had wasted her time. My ACX profile stated at the time that I was available for “royalty share or unspecified”, so I did not mislead anyone.

I can’t take every royalty share book I’m offered because it’s a serious commitment of my time and money to produce an audiobook. I must have some evidence that I can recoup my costs from the royalties. Otherwise, I couldn’t make enough money to sustain my business and/or might miss the opportunity to take work that pays up front.

Generally, a narrator would be able to earn her fee and expenses over time on an RS contract if one or more of these factors is true (the more, the better): 

• You routinely sell 500 copies a month of the ebook.
• Your Amazon sales rank is less than 100,000 and preferably 50,000 or less. If it’s over 1 million, a narrator knows that the other editions aren’t selling frequently, so the audiobook couldn’t be expected to sell, either. Be sure to point us to your best-selling edition as I described in this article.
• Your book has an average rating of at least 4.0 with at least 50 recent 5-star ratings from genuine reviewers.
• The estimated finished time of your audiobook would be 6-9 hours, which means your manuscript has around 55,800 to 83,700 words. If the audiobook is shorter than 6 hours, Audible listeners might be reluctant to use a credit to buy it. Purchases made with Audible credits tend to reap the largest royalties. If it’s longer than 9 hours, even more copies must be sold before a narrator earns out her fee and expenses.

In other words, a narrator is most interested in a royalty share contract for those books that are selling or can be expected to sell consistently in other editions. However, in those cases, an author is best served by paying the narrator her rate (usually $200-400 per finished hour) and retaining all royalties. This article further discusses your options and the break-even point.

3. Money makes the world go round.

I read a comment in an on-line forum that stated many indie authors are struggling to meet their living expenses. The person continued by saying that an extra $4 means the world for some people. I gathered that struggling authors create royalty share contracts with the thought that whatever revenue they might get from an audiobook would be better than nothing.

While I can understand and even relate to the “hard times” mentality, I strongly advise against creating audiobooks only for the money. Loyal listeners appreciate audiobook narration as an art form. New listeners might never listen to another book if their first experience is negative. In both situations, a sub-standard product created for the money will negatively affect the industry as a whole.

After getting a divorce from my first husband, I worked 2 jobs in order to pay my expenses and start saving for the life I wanted. When I decided to take a voiceover workshop and produce a demo, I didn’t expect the teacher to invest his time in me because he thought I had potential. Instead, I sold all kinds of stuff on eBay in order to pay him for teaching me and producing my demo. I did the same thing when I wanted to buy a harp.

Rather than producing an audiobook prematurely and only for the money, consider doing the exercise described here to figure out other ways of acquiring money.

By looking at the big picture, paying for production, and earning sustenance funds through other means, authors can find that their audiobooks are a steady revenue stream. Over time, the capital investment will turn into pure profit. In the meantime, audiobooks bring an author’s work to new audiences and are more discoverable by new fans.

Is this the year you’re planning to create an audiobook? What questions do you have about the process? Please leave me a comment and let me know!

The post Audiobooks Are Not Easy Money appeared first on Karen Commins.

In this 2-part series, I’ll discuss audiobook publishing using the Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX.com), the first and best-known audiobook matchmaking site. You’ll see how to maximize your ACX title listing to captivate your ideal narrator! I’ll address independent production on other platforms in future articles.

Check Your Rights

Regardless of whether you publish your audiobook or want a publisher to do it, the first thing you need to do is ensure you have the audio rights to your book. You will take this step regardless of the publishing platform you choose to use, i.e., ACX, Findaway Voices, Spoken Realms, etc.

If you published traditionally, you should carefully check your contract. You may have unknowingly assigned your audio rights to the publisher.

In that case, you should assess whether the rights are automatically returned to you after a certain period of time. I encourage you to ask the publisher about any plans for audiobook production. You can (and should!) request that the publisher revert the audio rights to you if they do not intend to exercise those rights. Many authors have been successful in reclaiming their audio rights in this manner. The links in this article will help you determine the rights holder and give you more info about rights reversion.

You may also need to address a second rights issue before you can start audiobook production. Authors sometimes include lyrics from contemporary songs in their text after obtaining permission from the lyric copyright owner. However, lyric reprint permission does not extend to the audiobook!

In fact, an audiobook narrator can’t sing or even speak copyrighted song lyrics in the recording unless you first obtain a mechanical license, and, if singing is required, performance rights to the song. Otherwise, you would need to modify your text so that your story works without the copyrighted material.

Prepare Your Text

Speaking of modifying your text, you may need to make changes to aid listener clarity and enjoyment. Since your narrator must read your book exactly as it is written, some words could take the listener out of the moment. For example, if your printed book states “you’re reading this book”, you could change the verb to be “you’re listening to this book.”

Typically, non-fiction books require more changes than do fiction ones. If your book includes any of the following types of material, a listener would not be able to follow along easily:

• Charts
• Graphs
• Exercises
• Questionnaires

You may need to write some descriptions for images and/or create a companion PDF of any material that the listener needs in order to fully understand the text. This site has instructions for creating a PDF. You can then follow these instructions to send the PDF to ACX so it can accompany the audiobook purchase. Furthermore, it’s a good idea to reformat your text by removing sidebars and inserting those passages in logical places within the text so your narrator can easily follow the correct flow of your ideas.

Create Your Book Listing

With your rights and properly formatted text in hand, you’re ready to start the independent production process by creating a book listing on ACX.com.

Audible.com, the largest retailer of audiobooks, launched ACX in 2011 as the first matchmaker site where professionals connect to create more audiobooks for Audible’s growing number of listeners.

Unlike dating sites, ACX is free to use and offers authors, literary agents, and publishers (aka, rights holders, or RHs) an excellent way to connect directly with audiobook narrators and producers. Completed audiobooks are automatically distributed to the 3 biggest sites for audiobook sales: Amazon, Audible, and iTunes.

Amazon owns Audible, which owns ACX. Audible is the exclusive audiobook supplier to iTunes, and you already know about Amazon’s publishing clout. In addition, ACX has a well-established process, an incredible talent pool, and a track record of over 100,000 completed audiobooks.

Signing on to ACX is easy as you’ll use your Amazon login and password.

As an RH in the US, UK, Ireland, or Canada, your only requirement to start production on ACX is that you have an edition of your book listed on Amazon. It doesn’t matter whether the edition is hardbound, paperback, or Kindle as long as one edition is there. Unfortunately, ACX is not currently available to rights holders in other countries. I will present other options in future articles.

A detailed tutorial for using ACX is beyond the scope of this column, but many helpful instructions exist on-line, including this terrific tutorial with screenshots. I also refer you to my previous article How to Avoid 3 Costly Mistakes on ACX.

In our remaining time together today, I want to talk about 5 key factors your ACX title profile needs to attract quality auditions for your title.

5 Key Factors

1. Pick the edition with the best (lowest number) Amazon sales rank.

The first step in ACX production after login is to claim your title from the list of your books on Amazon.

If you have multiple editions of the same book, you want to claim the one with the best Amazon sales rank. The sales rank is a vital piece of information for royalty share (RS) projects, which we’ll look at in a moment.

Enter the ASIN of the best performing edition in the ACX search box instead of your name. Your finished audiobook will be added as another edition on the book’s Amazon product page.

The annotated picture below shows you where to look on the Amazon page for your ASINs and sales ranks for each edition. In the example, the Kindle edition has a sales rank of 78,466, whereas the paperback of the same book has 558,236 as its sales rank. These numbers indicate that the Kindle version is bought more frequently than the paperback. You would want to use the ASIN from the Kindle edition when claiming your book on ACX.

2. Consider the pros and cons for exclusive vs. non-exclusive distribution before selecting one.

Under both options, your audiobook will be sold via digital download on Amazon, Audible, and iTunes for a 7-year term. However, your distribution choice will dictate your payment options for the production costs and your royalty rates.

EXCLUSIVE distribution means:
• Your royalty rate is currently 40% of revenues.
• You may choose to pay a one-time fee up-front for production (a per finished hour, or PFH, rate) and retain all 40% in royalties.
• You also have a royalty share (RS) option, which allows you to defer your production costs throughout the 7 years by offering a RS contract where the narrator is paid out of the revenues from the audiobook royalties. You each would receive 20% in royalties.
• You are prohibited from making the audiobook available to libraries, bookstores, or schools and you cannot sell it on CD.

NON-EXCLUSIVE distribution means:
• Your royalty rate is currently 25% of revenues.
• You must pay PFH rates up-front for the production costs, or you already have audio that meets ACX’s recording specifications and is ready to upload.
• You do not have the RS payment option.
• You’re allowed to offer the audiobook for sale at other on-line or physical retailers and/or on CD. You could submit it to services like Overdrive.com for potential library distribution.

The additional information in this article will help you make this critical decision.

If you choose the wrong distribution option, you can’t change it without emailing ACX Support to delete this listing so you can create a new one.

3. Enter a book description and rights holder comments that generate excitement.

ACX estimates the finished time by dividing 9300 average words spoken in an hour into the word count of the text. You should be aware that the rule of thumb is that 6 hours are needed to produce each finished hour of an audiobook. A 10-hour audiobook therefore requires around 60 or more hours of work.

If you decide on a royalty share (RS) contract, you need to be aware that a narrator has all of the risk for low or no sales of the audiobook. As a result, the most experienced narrators may not be interested in auditioning for, much less performing, your book.

Fill out this area of your profile with enough solid information that makes the narrator interested in your story and convinces her that the long-term royalties will recoup her narration fee and her production costs.

A solid marketing plan is essential to achieve sales, especially for RS projects.

Your numbers of social media followers on various sites may not impress narrators unless you are a celebrity or have numbers in at least 5 figures. Even then, if you haven’t studied marketing tactics for each site, how will you convey to a narrator that you know how to sell books on that platform?

I’m much more interested in knowing other numbers, like:
• average monthly unit sales (not free downloads) in other formats
• recipients on your email mailing list
• frequency of your emails to that list
• total books you’ve written

Also include information about the awards that you have won and your specific marketing and promotional plans for this book and the new audiobook.

The system will automatically link to your Amazon book page and fill in your Amazon rating average and sales rank. A narrator is much more enthused about a sales rank of 40,000 than 4,000,000. If the posted edition isn’t selling, the audiobook probably won’t sell, either. Now you know why I advised you about the sales rank in item 1!

One number that is NOT in your favor on a RS contract is the request for more than 1 narrator. No one wants to share their 20% of royalties with another narrator to whom they aren’t married, and ACX does not accommodate multi-narrator projects, anyway. (If you do need to hire 2 narrators, please leave me a comment for the system work-around.)

4. Be ready to upload visually-pleasing cover art.

Just like in Internet dating, the picture on your profile is the first thing Mr. and Ms. Narrator see about your title. We definitely judge a book by its cover! If you don’t post a compelling cover for your book, you may not receive many auditions.

In addition, your cover art needs to meet Audible’s requirements for a perfectly squared off, proportional image. You may need to pay a designer to create the ideal cover for your audiobook.

Remember, too, that traditional publishers own the copyright to their cover designs. You may be able to license yours for the audiobook, but you should finalize those arrangements before you post your title on ACX.

5. Choose your audition scenes carefully.

Authors commonly post either the first few pages or the entire book as the audition text. Neither may serve your best interest! The first few pages may not include the main characters. Narrators don’t have time to read your entire book or understand the arc or relationships before submitting an audition.

Coffee meetings serve as first dates. Likewise, finished auditions also quick and usually last no more than 5 minutes. Therefore, you should post an audition of 2-3 pages that contains both narrative and some dialogue between the main 2-4 characters. You may need to choose more than 1 scene from different parts of the book. Character descriptions and scene set-ups are appreciated.

Next Wednesday, we’ll look at the rest of the ACX process, from casting the narrator you love to living happily ever after with the audiobook. In the meantime, please leave me any questions and comments below.

The original version of this article appeared in the October 2015 issue of InD’tale Magazine. I’ve updated it and added more links.

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The post Author Seeks Narrator: Must Love Books appeared first on Karen Commins.

My fellow narrators and I often contact authors about creating audiobooks of their books. Many times, the author tells me that her publisher has the audio rights, or she isn’t sure who owns them.

Authors could make more money by exercising as many subsidiary rights as possible for each book, especially the audio rights. The audiobook industry is on a 3-year trend of double digit growth that shows no sign of slowing.

If you have your audio rights, you could contract with a narrator or producer to create an audiobook. You also could choose to license your audio rights to a publisher or producer. The trade-off is that you earn more royalties if you retain your rights and contract with a narrator or producer. When you license your rights, your royalty rate is lower because someone else is managing the audiobook production process.

I’m posting this list of links about rights so that more authors can get their books into audio.

• PublishLawyer.com
  • Rights 101
  • Tell me about royalties for subsidiary rights

• UK Society of Authors Guide To Copyright and Permissions
  • This site publishes a number of other guides and articles that you will find helpful.

• Managing Intellectual Property in the Book Publishing Industry PDF

• The Creative Penn blog How Authors Sell Publishing Rights with Orna Ross
  • Note: I bought the book with the same title but found the coverage on audio rights in chapter 10 to be limited to ACX, Podium Publishing, CD Baby and Author’s Republic, with the emphasis on the author’s costs and royalty rates. Licensing the audio rights to a publisher or producer isn’t discussed.

• The article Securing Audiobook Rights: Rights You Need to Bring Your Audiobook to Market on Jane Friedman’s blog is a good summary.

In addition to managing your own publishing rights, you’ll want to be sure to honor copyrights on others’ works. This Cornell University chart shows copyright terms in the US.

Lyrics and Music

Many authors include popular song lyrics in their books without understanding that they first need to obtain permission from the copyright holder, which may be granted at a cost based on projected sales of the book. This article explains the process of licensing reprints of song lyrics.

The reprint rights are non-transferrable, so they don’t apply to the narrator. Be aware that your narrator will not be legally allowed to sing or say the lyrics of a copyrighted song in the audiobook unless you also obtain a mechanical license, which is an additional permission and expense.

You cannot include copyrighted music in your audiobook without also obtaining a master use license from the copyright owner of the sound recording.

If you want to fully understand the flow of copyright and licensing agreements in music, I highly recommend Harvard Professor William Fisher’s video lecture on this topic.

I’ll continue to add to this page as I discover useful sites. If you know of a helpful site on this topic, please post the URL in a comment. I’ll also be happy to answer any questions.

The post Links to Help Authors Know Their Rights appeared first on Karen Commins.

Before you read further, I should state that I’m not a lawyer. I offer advice based on my experience in the audiobook industry, but anyone considering starting a publishing company may need to consult with an attorney.

Telisha’s Questions:

1. Does ACX accept copyright audiobooks without the author’s consent in the example of an economy book that has been in publication for 20 years and has a new edition every year which comes out and has never had an audio version.  I would love to do it. From reading your article, I would hate to have this idea usurped as the authors did in your experience.

In order to publish an audiobook, the text must either be in the public domain, or  you must have the audio rights to publish it. Authors own the audio rights to their work unless and until they assign the rights to another party. Many publishers include audio rights as part of a publishing contract for the work.

This chart shows you copyright term and the public domain in the US. The terms vary for other countries; for example, this page has info about copyright in the UK.

If the work is in the public domain, anyone can use it for whatever purpose they like. As an example, I discovered 2 related books were in the public domain, and neither had ever been recorded. I edited both books together so they followed a consistent timeline. The result was an original, derivative work for which I now hold the copyright: Bly vs Bisland: Beating Phileas Fogg in a Race Around The World. I created the Kindle book and produced and co-narrated the audiobook.

If the copyright is still valid on the book, you must do research to determine who holds the audio rights. It could be the author, the author’s literary agent, or a traditional publisher.

When using ACX.com to distribute the audiobook, you must first be able to claim an edition on Amazon. It doesn’t matter whether the edition is Kindle, paperback, or hardback. My article linked above gives the steps and additional info about claiming the Amazon edition when you are using a text in the public domain. The ACX process is much simpler for claiming titles still in copyright and would start with step 6 and skip step 7 in my article.

Not knowing or being able to find the rights holder does not give one permission to record and publish the audiobook! Copyright infringement can be a serious and costly mistake.

Which leads us to the next question…

2. How do you find out who holds the Rights on a book currently in print? Can you negotiate to buy the audio rights? Is there a better way to buy the audio rights to a book currently in print?

The research on rights can start with how the book came to your attention. If you know the author, you can ask her whether she still has the audio rights to a book.

If the work is traditionally published, you can contact the Subsidiary Rights department of the publisher. You may need to become a detective following the links in this article and/or hire a researcher.

Once you find the rights holder, you can negotiate with that party to license the audio rights.

In August 2016, I hosted a webinar with Jessica Kaye, a Grammy-winning audiobook producer/director of over 500 titles, founder of long-time audiobook distributor Big Happy Family Audio, and intellectual property attorney at Kaye & Mills. Before the webinar, I compiled a list of links to aid in researching the rights holder and distributing the finished audiobook. In the 1.5 hours of the webinar, I asked Jessica how to structure the deal and specific questions about the budget for licensing. You can buy a copy of the recording and receive my exclusive list of links for $49 on my Shop page.

3. What production and payment options did you choose and why? I read up on the ACX website, but wanted to get your perspective as a seasoned business owner and narrator. 

ACX forces one to select non-exclusive distribution when publishing an audiobook from a public domain text. The royalty rate is currently 25% of earnings, paid each month.

With Bly vs Bisland, I could have chosen exclusive distribution since it is an original work. Exclusive distribution gives you a 40% royalty rate, but you’re only allowed to sell the book on Audible, Amazon, and iTunes throughout the contract period. I chose non-exclusive distribution for it as well since I’d also like it to be available in libraries and places like the NY Historical Society Museum.

I’m currently producing and narrating a text for which I negotiated and licensed the audio rights. I haven’t decided if I want to distribute through ACX or another venue. If I do go through ACX, I’m leaning toward exclusive distribution for the first year to maximize the royalties paid. Like print editions, the interest in an audiobook is highest during its first year.

After the first year, section 12(A) of the ACX Book Posting Agreement states that you can write to Audible to request a change to non-exclusive distribution for titles produced under the pay-for-production model. The distribution cannot be changed for books created under a royalty share (RS) contract. As both the audio rights holder and narrator, I wouldn’t enter into an RS agreement with myself.

4. What was your starting out per-finished hour rate?

I’m assuming this question refers to my rate as an audiobook narrator. I completed my first audiobook for a commercial publisher in 2003. My rate was $60 per finished hour, which included editing and mastering the audio files to be retail-ready and transmitting them via DAT.

To learn more about building skills in becoming an audiobook narrator, check out this article. You’ll find more advice specific to being a producer on ACX at this link.

Adrian’s Questions:

5. I just finished recording an audio version of a copyrighted book that the author himself narrated and a friend of mine suggested that I start my own publishing company. I’m confused since the agreement with the author of the book was that we will publish the audiobook thru ACX and he will receive all the royalties. But now I wonder if I should use this opportunity and offer him to publish the book thru my publishing company that I want to start. Obviously all the profit on his book will be completely his.  

Can you give some advice or thought on that? 

Adrian clarified for me that:

• he had been the sound engineer in a work-for-hire arrangement with the author
• the author had paid him the agreed-upon fee
• he had created an ACX account for the author to upload the files

In this instance, you have no choice but to give the author the audio files per your agreement with him. For instance, the agreement may state that you will provide the edited, mastered, retail-ready, finished product. Withholding the files definitely is a breach of contract. I also would think attempts to re-negotiate the terms of the agreement at this point violate the spirit of the agreement and could jeopardize your long-term reputation.

Assuming that the file upload wasn’t included in your contract, you could offer to upload the files to the author’s ACX account as a convenience to that person and for an additional fee. The audio rights to the work, the audio files, and the ACX account all belong to the author.

Offering the author the chance to “publish through your company” doesn’t get the author anything, and, in fact, would cost the author more because you presumably would take a commission from the royalties. Otherwise, how would you make money from this venture?

The 3 easiest ways that you could start a publishing company are:

1. following the steps in my article to produce works in the public domain
2. acquiring the audio rights to books as discussed in questions 1 and 2 above
3. becoming an agent for authors who don’t want to or have time to do the casting, production, and technical aspects like uploading files, and/or for those who want to use ACX but live outside the US, UK, Canada, or Ireland.

In your position as sound engineer, option 3 seems like the best route for you. You would need to outline the services covered in your fee to potential clients BEFORE you sign an agreement.

You would need to cast qualified narrators since authors usually are not the best oral interpreters of their text. You could use the talent pool on ACX for casting. You could also use ACX for distribution or another service. You would make these kinds of decisions when developing your business plan.

As the audio publisher, you’re also responsible for marketing the audiobook, starting with its cover art. Many times, the audio publisher cannot license the cover art to the print editions and must create or obtain new artwork for the audio.

6. If I want to start a publishing company is it enough to make a ACX publishing account or do I need to register it somewhere else?

ACX is merely a distribution option in audiobook production. You would still need to follow rules in your state, county, and city about starting a business. You may be required to get a business license and/or file other paperwork. You also need to talk with your tax advisor about the type of business you’d run (sole proprietor, LLC, etc.), which would dictate how you’d report the taxes on the income from it.

*****

When I worked at the government, I taught many training classes. I always liked to end with this quote:

We have not succeeded in answering all our problems.
The answers we have found only serve to raise a whole set of new questions.
In some ways we feel we are as confused as ever,
but we believe we are confused on a much higher level, and about more important things. 

Obviously, we’ve just scratched the surface about considerations in audiobook publishing! If you have questions, please leave a comment, or contact me on my Shop page to set up a 30- or 60-minute personal consultation.

Updated 7/9/19

The post Mailbag: 6 Questions About Audio Publishing appeared first on Karen Commins.

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!

The post The Christmas Present appeared first on Karen Commins.

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

The post A DEAL You Can Get Any Day And Is Good All Year appeared first on Karen Commins.

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:

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

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.

• 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.

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!

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

With that point in mind, I decided it would helpful to list all of my audiobook-related resources in one place. (Last updated 29 May 2017)

Guides:

Audiobook Resources For Authors is a curated list of articles that are grouped to take authors through the stages of production from thought to final product.

My Audiobook Marketing Cheat Sheet contains oodles of ideas for specifically publicizing and marketing the audiobook edition.

Authors and narrators will benefit from subscribing to 1 or more of my 5 Twitter lists of audiobook people and organizations.