It transformed our business when we started re-purposing our books into audiobooks. You’ve already done the work once, so why not profit on it multiple times by publishing an audiobook. That’s what we’re going to talk about in this episode. I’m also going to share with you a way that you can publish professional audio books with no up front costs.
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In This Episode, You’ll Learn:
- Where to publish an audiobook
- The place we use to publish our audiobooks
- How to have professionally narrated audiobooks produced with no upfront costs
- And more!
Enjoy the podcast! It’s my hope that these episodes are bring you on step closer to reaching more people with your message.
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Godly Gain Segment:
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Today’s scripture: How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? Romans 10:14 (NKJV)
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Can’t listen right now? Read the transcript below:
Today’s podcast is episode 19, titled “5 Steps to Publishing an Audiobook.” I’m going to share with you how to produce it with no up-front costs, so let’s dive right in.
Our first audiobook was published in December of 2012. I had already been publishing for several years at that point. I published my first book in 2008, but I didn’t publish an audiobook until four years later. When I did, we sold over a hundred audiobooks in the next six weeks with very little marketing, because we already had an audience, but some of our audience wanted to listen to audiobooks. How many of you are audiobook listeners? I know sometimes I love listening to an audiobook. It’s just easier when you’re in the car, you’re on a walk, or you’re multitasking, and so you need to think about the readers, and some of your customers will actually want content in this form.
Not only am I going to show you five steps to publish an audiobook, but I’m also going to tell you how you can do it with no up-front costs and have a really professionally produced audiobook. The first step when you publish an audiobook is to decide where you’re going to sell it. Now the main place I recommend is ACX.com. Unfortunately ACX is only open to US- or UK-based authors at this time. A lot of international authors are still waiting for ACX to catch up.
ACX is Amazon’s company to self-publish audiobooks. They publish it to iTunes, to Audible, to Amazon, and to the major retailers where you can get your audiobook to your readers, so when you publish in this way, on the Amazon page, it will actually list other formats. You know what I’m saying? It’ll say print book, eBook, Kindle book, and then it will say audiobook, so when people are on Amazon they’ll be able to see, “Oh, she also has this in an audiobook format,” or, “He also has this in audiobook format. I think I will get that instead.” It’s really great to choose ACX; however, for some of you who are not able to do that, you can also sell it directly from your website, and there are several recommendations that you can look into.
There is Big Happy Family Audio; that’s a site you can look into. In Ear Entertainment, Bee Audio, and Open Book Audio—I researched all of them at one point. I personally have not used them because I use ACX, but those are just some other options if you are from another country or if you want to look at different options. The other thing you can do is, when you publish to ACX, if you choose nonexclusive rights, which means you’re not saying that it can be exclusively sold through ACX, then you can also sell the MP3 files from your website. You just use your regular payment processor, or you can use a payment processor like Gumroad or something like that to sell those MP3 files.
One thing I personally love to do and I’ve had great success with is offering the MP3 files of my audiobook for free during my launch for those who buy my book. If you buy my book during the launch, then you sign up to a list and it’s an auto-responder so it happens automatically, or automagically, and then I deliver those MP3 files to you. It’s not a ton of extra work for me and people love it. People love getting the audiobook version as well as your regular book version, but you can only do that if you choose nonexclusive rights on ACX. That’s something to definitely consider. With some of our books, we have chosen exclusive rights because we get higher royalties, and we can also use their narrators, but we’ve chosen nonexclusive at certain times for certain books because we’ve wanted the flexibility. There’s different strategies and different ways you can use audiobooks that you need to know up-front before you sign a contract with ACX.
That’s the first step: decide where you will sell your audiobook. What company will you use? The second step is to decide who will record your audiobook. Now you can actually record your own audiobook, and my husband and I have done that at times. I have a Blue Yeti mic and Audacity software. It’s a great way to record, but you have to be very careful because you do need production quality audio, so you just really need to look at some of those things if you’re going to record it on your own. However, you can also use the narrators from ACX, and this is where you can have someone professionally narrate your audiobook for free if you choose the exclusive rights for ACX and the royalty share.
Now, a lot of people are hesitant to do this because they think, “Why would I give ACX exclusive rights to my audiobook?” One of the things to consider is: you’re making zero right now on an audiobook that is not created. Maybe you have an eBook, maybe you have a print book and it sells well, you’ve got great feedback and so you want to put it in audiobook format, but you just haven’t had the time to record it yourself or you just don’t have the up-front funds to hire a narrator that you want to hire. Making a percentage of something is more than making zero of nothing. Can we agree on that?
When I first did this, I had dozens of books already published, and so I decided for many of my books to simply go into the exclusive rights and do royalty shares with narrators. I found really good narrators on ACX, and they were able to get our audiobooks done one right after another without me doing any work, without me having any up-front costs, and I continue to earn royalties on those every month. If I would have waited, and it’s fine to wait; if you have one book and you really want to make sure that you can make the most on that book, then you definitely may want to consider hiring a narrator, and that way you keep all the royalties on the back end, or maybe consider, if you’re a speaker or if you really want to connect with your audience through the audio portion of the book, consider recording it on your own.
I love that option that’s there that you can sign up for ACX.com, you can find a narrator you like and you can hire them with no up-front costs. Then you just decide that the two of you will share, will split the royalties on the back end. There’s no risk for you. You’re earning something; you’re not just letting that sit there. Also, I’m passionate about helping you reach more people with your message, so when you publish an audiobook, you’re able then to reach a different audience, because there’s different people who listen to audiobooks than will download your eBook or your print book.
Step number three is to prepare for production. If you are recording your own audiobook, you’ll need to get all of the equipment and things that you need, and I have a full training on this in Author Audience Academy about how to do audiobooks, and so all of that, those details are there, but if you’re going to be having a narrator, then you need to start preparing for the production for that narrator. On ACX what you do is you have to post your book for narration and find the narrator, and take those steps. There’s a couple tips that you really want to do when you’re posting on ACX to draw the attention of the narrator, and one of the things is to actually list your author reach. Try to be able to let that narrator know that you have a way to market that audiobook, because they’re putting in all this time and energy up-front and wondering, will it sell? That’s something to consider as well.
Step number four is to record the audiobook. Now if you have a narrator doing that, this step is easy for you. You just sit back and wait for them to send you the files. If you’re recording it yourself, this is actually a really great way to do a final edit of your book, because you’re going to catch a ton of mistakes when you’re reading it out loud. That’s a great way to proofread your book, but if you do decide to record your own audiobook, it’s actually a great thing to do before your final publish date, because you can catch a bunch of little mistakes that you might have missed or your editor may have missed along the way, so it’s just another little benefit to recording your audiobook. If you are hiring a narrator during this step, then you’ll need to approve the audio files. You do want to go back and listen to it, and you can use different things to listen to it faster if you want.
I have a funny story to share. One of my narrators actually was recording my audiobook and burped in the middle of the chapter and forgot to edit it out, and I was listening to it and all of a sudden heard this big burp. I just nicely let him know, “Hey, I caught this little thing.” “Oh my goodness, I’m so embarrassed; I totally forgot to edit that out.” It is important to listen or another option is to ask someone—kind of like a beta reader would do for your regular book—ask them to be a beta listener so that you don’t have to spend all your time listening to it, but then they can listen, get the information, get entertained if it’s fiction. Then the fifth step is to start marketing and selling your audiobook. This is ongoing just like all of marketing, but I encourage you to let your followers know that the audiobook version is available, because like I said some people love to listen to an audiobook.
Then there’s specific places that you can actually promote audiobooks, different Facebook groups and different things like that. Mostly what we’ve done is to use the audiobook as a special bonus during the launch. We make sure we add links to it on our site when possible, and then Amazon automatically will market it for you right next to your other formats. That way if somebody wants that format, they will see it, and there are a ton more things that I could go into detail with marketing your audiobook. That’s all in my training in Author Audience Academy, but I at least wanted to get you started, get you thinking. What other ways can I use this content I’ve already created? It doesn’t matter if you have a big budget or a little budget; you can get started with no budget. If you’re in the US or UK, look into ACX.com. It’s a great platform to publish your audiobooks. I love it.
Lights, camera, action. Are you ready for this week’s Take Action Tip? Today I want you to look at the books you currently have or that you will be publishing. I want you to think about whether or not an audiobook version makes sense for your book or books. If it does and you’re in the United States or the UK, I definitely recommend going and signing up at ACX.com to see what they have to offer and if you want to use them.
If not, you can check out the other options that I shared in this podcast and definitely consider publishing an audiobook if you already have done the work. Also make sure to get the show notes and all the resources from today’s episode at AuthorAudience.com/19 – that’s the number 19.
Before we end, I want to give you a backstage pass in this week’s Godly Gains Segment. As I was talking about audiobooks, it made me think about the scripture in Romans 10:14, which says, “How then shall they call on him who may have not believed, and how shall they believe in him whom they have not heard, and how shall they hear without a preacher.” If you’re a follower of Christ, if you’re a believer, you have the ability to share the gospel in your book.
Whatever type of book you have, you can share part of your story, you can share the gifts that God has given you, but it says, how can they hear without a preacher and how can they believe of whom they have not heard. Now, one way they can hear is through the written text in your book, but they can actually hear through an audiobook as well. In their ears, they can actually be listening to your story, listening to the gospel, listening to whatever it is you’re teaching and the gifts that you are sharing through that audiobook.
Definitely, don’t pass up the opportunity to repurpose your book into an audiobook. It’s my hope and my goal that these episodes are bringing you one step closer to being able to shine and reach more people with your message. I believe in you, and I’m so thrilled to be walking beside you through this podcast, helping you each step of the way.
Thank you so much for joining me. I truly do appreciate you and do not take it for granted that you’re spending your time with me on this podcast. I definitely would love to give you a free gift. If you haven’t downloaded it yet, I recommend that you download a free copy of my book, Self-Publishing Books 101. It will go into a lot more detail about all the ins and outs of self-publishing, and you can get it at AuthorAudience.com/selfpublishing. Thanks again for joining me in this episode, and I’ll see you next time.
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