Best places to promote your books
To-Do List Plan by Ollie Morrison
Step-by-step guidance on how to put together your new and improved to-do list, allowing you to become a master at task management and finally take control of your day
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Audiobooks have been a runaway success in recent years. And there are two real options for creating your audiobook. You can either record it yourself or hire a professional to do it for you. In this article, we’ll look at how you can record your first audiobook using both options.
To create your own audiobook isn’t a difficult task. You’ll need a suitable place to record, the right equipment, and the tech know-how to make it happen. The right equipment can cost a few hundred dollars if you need to buy everything. However, if you’ve ever started a podcast, you’ll have a lot of the equipment, anyway.
You’ll also need time. A lot of time.
The simple answer here is “it depends”.
On average, a professional narrator works at about 9,400 words an hour. So, if you’ve got an 80,000-word book, that’s around 8.5 hours of recording time. However, seeing you’re reading an article titled “how to make an audiobook”, I’ll assume you’re most likely not a professional voice-over artist. So, in that case, it’ll take you a lot longer.
If you’re familiar with the recording process, you may be okay, but if you’re new, budget for anywhere between two to five times the suggested amount of time when you take into account retakes and any breaks during the session.
You also must rest your voice throughout, so it will stretch the process over days or weeks.
It isn’t just the reading that takes time, but it’s also all of the post-production work too. After you’ve finished recording, you’ll need to listen to the entire book a few times and re-record any mistakes you may have missed in the first reading. There could even be some parts where the audio quality is a little different, so that’ll require editing too.
From there, you must get all the files ready to upload.
This takes about four times the suggested time limit above. So, using the 9,400 words an hour estimate, your editing and post-production work should take 30-40 hours. Again, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to do this in large sittings, so you must stretch the process out over a month or so. Especially if it’s your first audiobook.
If this approach seems daunting, don’t worry — there’s another way.
If spending up to 200 hours working on your audiobook sounds like torture, hire a professional.
Finding a professional for your book will be easy. Finding a good voice-over artist… Well, that’s a bit harder. Sure, there are popular freelance marketplaces like Upwork and Fiverr where you’ll find audiobook narrators. However, there’s no guarantee the freelancer you hire will be good. Many people who use these freelancing platforms have to sort through a lot of freelancers before they find one who is worth working with.
So, I suggest using a dedicated audiobook service. The two most popular services are the Amazon/Audible ACX program and Findaway Voices (don’t worry, we’ll look at both options more later). Also, it’s important to know that ACX isn’t open to all countries yet. So, if you’re not in the US, Canada, the UK or Ireland, you must use Findaway Voices to make your audiobook.
These options are popular with many authors and they’re great services that make it super easy for you.
Both Findaway and ACX have similar methods in getting your book published so I won’t bore you by repeating myself by going every step for both sites. Basically, you’ll follow a process that looks something like this.
Sounds a lot easier, right?
Again, the correct (but not incredibly useful) answer is “it depends”. The length of your book, the rate of your narrator, and type of book you’re writing can change the price of your audiobook.
Getting your novel turned into an Audiobook isn’t cheap — especially if you’ve written a long book like an epic sci-fi or fantasy novel. It’s a hard job that requires a lot of talent and patience.
If you’re using Findaway, you’ll strike a deal with a narrator to get the price. However, there’s a calculator on their pricing page that will give you a ball-park figure depending on the length of your book and the price-range per-hour for your narrator. Narrators start at $150 an hour and go above $500 for the very best. For example, for a 50,000-word book and a $250-per-hour narrator, you’ll pay between $1,350 and $1,650.
Keep in mind, this price is per finished hour. That means the quoted price is for every hour of finished audio. You don’t have to pay extra for editing.
ACX pricing is similar for established narrators. However, one thing they do which is cool is offer a revenue-sharing model.
You pay nothing upfront and then split royalties 50/50 with your narrator for a seven-year period. This sounds like a pretty sweet deal, but you have to do some math. Half of all your audiobook sales for seven years will probably end up costing you a lot more in the long run. So, if you can afford to pay upfront, I’d suggest that.
Also, not every narrator will be open to splitting revenue, as it’s an enormous risk on their behalf. If they spend weeks narrating a book and the author doesn’t market their book properly, they won’t get paid for their work. So that means that you’ll likely attract the more inexperienced narrators through revenue-share.
It’s important to know that if you’re going through ACX revenue-share, they will lock your book into Amazon and Audible. That means that you won’t be able to sell it anywhere else for seven years.
Findaway Voices didn’t have a sharing model for a long time. However, they’ve recently included one on their platform too. Findaway’s revenue share model has a buyout option. Basically, you and the narrator agree on a buyout number and you can pay that and start taking full royalties. This is a great middle ground. Now, if your book becomes the next bestseller, you’ll get to reap the rewards!
Comparing Distribution with ACX and Findaway.
We’ve spoken about the general process you must take to make an audiobook. Now, let’s look at the distribution methods of both audiobook creation platforms we’ve mentioned, ACX and Findaway.
ACX is Audible’s full-service audiobook production and distribution platform. When you sign up with ACX, you can distribute to Amazon, Audible and iTunes.
We’ve touched on some production and distribution options with ACX, but there’s more.
As mentioned earlier. When you go exclusive, you’re signing up for a seven-year contract through Audible. So consider that option.
As you can see, Amazon drops your rate from 40% to 25% if you don’t go exclusive. However, you can make sales on any other platform. So it’s really up to you on what you think is best. Look at where you make the most eBook sales and see what works for you.
Findaway Voices lets you create audiobooks and sell them through more than 20 sellers across retail, library, and school markets in over 170 countries.
If you publish your books through Draft2Digital, you’ve probably seen Findaway before. They’ve got a handy little partnership that lets you easily transfer your book across to get started on the audiobook.
For royalty splits, it’s a little tricky. Basically, Findaway takes 20% of your royalties and you get 80%.
Using the non-exclusive Audible numbers above, you’ll get 25% of the sale price as a royalty payment. Findaway takes 20% of that royalty and you’ll receive 80% of it.
So, let’s say you earn $5 in royalties for a sale. Findaway will take $1 (20%), and you’ll keep $4 (80%).
When using other retailers, your royalty rate will be around the 40-50% mark and again, the same math will apply. You’ll get 80% of the total royalties, and Findaway will receive 20%. Giving Findaway 20% can add up. However, adding your book individually to all platforms and looking after a dozen listings of a book can be almost impossible to manage.
Findaway offers a convenient solution for a time-consuming problem.
Creating an audiobook can be a huge job. However, doing it right can lead to a lot more sales on a fast-growing medium. It might be time to dip into audiobooks!
Cheers!
Photo by Lena Kudryavtseva on Unsplash
Turn-Key Secrets: The Ultimate Guide to Building Your Multi-Million Dollar Wealth Management Practice by Andrea K. Bullard
In Turn-Key Secrets, the author Andrea Bullard divulges the 4 essential Pillars to building a multi-million dollar Wealth Management practice. She shares strategies to substantially reduce work hours and related stress and at the same time significantly increase net income.
Turn-Key Secrets is a must-read for every Wealth Manager that aspires to transform their practice into a multi-million dollar enterprise while delivering concierge service to each and every client.
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Life Launch: A Roadmap to an Extraordinary Adulthood by Lesse Giunta Rafeh
When you transition from teenager to adult, it can feel like you’re expected to simply know what to do. On the one hand, adulthood is great; you get to decide what kind of life you want to have, and the freedom to pursue it your own way. But reality is tough. When it comes to building relationships, a career, and a financial future, where do you start? What does your “own way” even look like? Without the answers, it’s easy to fall into anxiety, anger, and depression—and lose focus on the big picture you’re trying to build.
With her fifteen years of experience in young-adult-focused therapy and coaching, Jesse Giunta Rafeh now reaches out to a wider audience with this accessible, practical guide to creating an extraordinary adulthood. In Life Launch, Jesse transforms intuition into practice, giving you a map to the questions you should be asking yourself. Unlike other books, she doesn’t tell you what to do–instead, you’ll build the roots of your perspective to unlock the insight you already possess. Combining deep self-reflection work with accountability and structure, you’ll come away with a 360-degree view on the entirety of your adult life–what to do when you’re lost, what kind of future you can envision, and the power you have to create it.
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Who has ever checked their ad performance and seen they’ve spent a whole lot of money without getting many (or any) sales?
It’s one thing to write a book, but selling it? That can be tricky. If you’re not seeing that many sales, one major contributor is often your book description. Think about it, if people are clicking your ad, then your book cover and title have already done their jobs. There’s something on your sales page that isn’t converting.
Your book description is the sales letter for your book. The right description will convert browsers on your sales page into readers.
In this article, we’ll look at how you can write a winning book description for fiction works.
We’ll start by looking at book descriptions for fiction books. Now, while there’s no set rulebook on writing a description for your novel, Byan Cohen’s book, How to Write a Sizzling Synopsis, has an awesome method of synopsis-writing.
Here’s a picture of what it looks like in action, then we’ll break it down piece by piece so you can use it to sell your next book.
Last time you were at the cinema, did you see the taglines for the movies? These lines try to grab the audience’s attention and give you a slight insight into what the movie will be about.
The right tagline can do wonders for a film.
The same goes for your book. Instead of trying to get someone to check out the movie poster or watch the trailer, with a book tagline, you want to get your potential reader to read the entire description and hopefully buy your book.
You see, when an Amazon browser first clicks on a sales page, they only see the first few lines of your book description. They need to click a ‘read more’ button to access your full description. This makes the first line or two vital for getting people interested enough to want to read on.
If a movie-style tagline doesn’t work, you can ask a question. The description above uses the question “Can a dog and a chicken become best friends?” as a way to open the loop with the reader. If the reader wants to know more about that question, they’ll have to keep reading.
You can also try with a tagline that compares your book to another well-known film, TV show, or book. The fastest way you can get a potential reader to have any emotion about something they’re unfamiliar with (your book), is to compare it to something they do know.
A great comparison in a book description is in the book, Dinosaur Lords, which uses this tagline “It’s like a cross between Jurassic Park and Game of Thrones.” Odds are, if you liked one or both of those books, you’ll check out Dinosaur Lords.
Also, it doesn’t hurt if you can get George R. R. Martin to give your book a Game of Thrones reference.
People like to think they enjoy trying new things. However, most of us know what we like and stick to it. This is especially accurate for book fans. Readers usually have a genre or two that they enjoy and stick with it.
This means when they’re looking for a book to read, they want to know mostly two things.
The most efficient way you can let shoppers know if your book is one they’ll be interested in is to give a quick synopsis. This isn’t the time to brag about all the work you did world-making or designing backgrounds for your secondary characters. This also isn’t the time to give away the ending to your book, especially if you’re writing page-turner mystery books. Just the important stuff is needed here. Stick to these rules.
This is enough information for your reader to know if your book is something they’d be interested in. You’ll attract the right readers and get the ones who won’t like your book to click away (this is a good thing).
If the potential reader has got this far in your book description that means they’ve:
Basically, they’re a hot lead. They obviously see something that they like in your book. Now all you have to do is give a nudge to buy. You do this with a short selling paragraph and a call-to-action.
For your selling paragraph, feel free to brag a little about yourself and your awesome book. If you’ve previously written a bestseller, include that here. Also, mention if your book is in a series. It’s important to use strong and emotive language in your selling paragraph to compel readers. Here’s a list of great power words you can try.
After your selling paragraph, it’s important to include a call-to-action to give potential shoppers the next step. If you’re not comfortable with “selling”, then here are some great examples of calls to actions for your books:
A well-written book description will make sure you sell more books at a much higher conversion rate. This will improve your all-around sales numbers along with giving a huge boost to your advertising ROI.
Follow the simple template in this article for your next. book description.
Cheers!
Dave Chesson is the creator of Kindlepreneur.com, a website devoted to teaching advanced book Marketing which even Amazon KDP acknowledge as one of the best by telling users to “Gain insight from Kindlepreneur on how you can optimize marketing for your books.” Having worked with such authors as Orson Scott Card, Ted Dekker and more, his tactics help both Fiction and Nonfiction authors of all levels get their books discovered by the right readers.
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