Erggo

Karen@KarenCommins.com

Karen Commins

Award Winning

Atlanta Audiobook Share-rator™

Audible

Karen Commins’s Audiobook Marketing Cheat Sheet

Last updated 27 April 2023


Don’t you just LOVE to market your audiobooks?

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

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

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

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

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

Visibility is the key to strong sales.

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

 

Distribution Channels

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Social Media and Other Tactics

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

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Audible Tools

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

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 3 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.
  3. The Independent Audiobook Awards accept submissions from mid-October to mid-January.

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!

 

Interview with Audiobook Blogger Beccy Stokes

Authors and narrators greatly appreciate the people who take the time to listen to our audiobooks and then write thoughtful reviews. In this installment in my series of interviews with audiobook bloggers, I’m excited to welcome Beccy Stokes from Audiothing Reviews and find out about her review interests and process.


[Read more…] about Interview with Audiobook Blogger Beccy Stokes

Upcoming Series: Interviews with Audiobook Bloggers

When you have the courage to put your art out in the world, you know you will get a mix of reactions to it in the reviews.

I have never written a review (and don’t intend to start), but I’ve certainly read plenty, including many left for my audiobooks on Audible.

However, I do look at reviews for 2 primary reasons:

  1. to prepare for an audition of a book I’d like to narrate
  2. after my audiobook is released so that I improve my performance in future books

If I’m reading the reviews for the print editions before an audition, I look for comments about:

  • grammar
  • spelling
  • typos
  • correct word usage
  • amount of graphic sexual or violent scenes
  • amount of foul language
  • plot and character development

Helpful comments include things like comparisons to TV shows and movies, where if you liked the other medium, you’d probably like this book as it has similar character development.

I also like to know that the reviewer reads/listens in the genre for the review. Some people who have never read/heard a cozy mystery JUST DON’T GET IT! They think all mysteries are full of violence and fast action. They leave negative reviews and ratings for books that don’t meet that expectation.

The review is also not the place to complain about the price of the book/audiobook, though many people write one for that very reason.

Whether the review is left for a print edition or the audiobook, it doesn’t help anyone if it doesn’t offer constructive criticism. With an audiobook, if the Audible listener doesn’t like the story, s/he will usually trash the narrator, too, and vice versa.

Those types of reviews usually have 1-star ratings and don’t offer anything helpful to either the author or narrator. They usually just say something generically mean that could have come from a MadLibs, like: “The [story or narrator] was [negative adjective like horrible, atrocious, terrible, awful]! Don’t waste your money!”

It’s like the reviewer is completely outraged that they spent money and then didn’t enjoy the audiobook for whatever reason. They feel it their sworn duty to warn off other people from making the same tragic mistake, yet they can’t articulate the reason the audiobook didn’t meet their expectations.

Whether a reviewer is writing from the heights of wild enthusiasm or from the abyss of negativity, what’s the point of writing a review if a person can’t say what s/he liked or didn’t like about the book? Writing “I liked/didn’t like it but don’t know why” is not a review; it’s an opinion.

Even in a discussion with one’s friends, just saying “I liked or didn’t like it” wouldn’t be enough. Someone who might be interested in the book would almost certainly ask what about it did you like/not like.

I’m not trying to tell anybody to write any certain thing or certain way.  Even the 1-line opinions of “loved it” or “hated it” are valuable because your art made somebody feel something, which is really the point behind creating it.

Since I haven’t written reviews, though, my opinions about them may not matter to anyone but me!

For this reason, I am thrilled to announce a new series of interviews with audiobook bloggers! These people love audiobooks and write thoughtful reviews of the audiobooks they hear.

April Holgate, prolific listener and author of the Eargasms Audiobook Reviews blog will be first in the interview hot seat. Look for her interview here on Sunday, 28 December. Coincidentally (or not!), I’ll be interviewed on her blog that day as well and hope you will check out both of our sites.
 

How I Started My Audiobook Publishing Company

During the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, I started seeing this wonderful ad from Dell, titled “Beginnings”:

Perhaps it caught my attention because I have my own story about the quiet beginnings for a new business:

Date: 10/6/06
Time: 10:10am
Place: 10634, the cabin number of a cruise ship docked in Mykonos, Greece

Becoming an audiobook publisher has been a rough road, full of potholes, downed trees, and diverging paths that didn’t necessarily lead me in the direction I wanted to go. Only by trudging forward and refusing to give up was I able to eventually reach the destination.

I offer this post as a road map for becoming an audiobook publisher on ACX with a public domain book. If you want to publish a book still under copyright, you may want to skip down to the end for more information.

Initial Obstacles

I recently wrote about how ideas love speed. I did take several immediate actions 7.5 years ago when I had the idea to create an audiobook publishing company. I read several books that hadn’t been made into audiobooks and contacted the authors about obtaining the audio rights.

One author was interested, but the idea seemed to be squelched by her agent’s lawyers, who were reluctant to be involved with a start-up. Another author wanted to narrate her book. It took her several more years, but I see on Audible that she did narrate her audiobook. A third author was someone rather famous. I didn’t receive a response to my inquiries, but I see that her book is now on Audible, too. Perhaps I gave her the idea.

Life intervened. With the loss of my mother and changes on my day job, I put my dream of becoming an audiobook publisher on the shelf. While ideas love speed, some ideas can’t be implemented immediately and often take years to develop.

All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come.

— Victor Hugo

With the advent of ACX, I knew that I could finally see this idea through to fruition!

Rather than start with a book from a contemporary author as I originally envisioned, I decided to start Jewel Audiobooks with what I thought would be a simpler project:  a book from the public domain (PD).

On 1 January 2013, I decided to publish the audiobook of The Heart of the New Thought by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, originally published in 1903. I wanted to produce a shorter work that would be new to audio and had a message I want to share. I often find myself in conversations about the power of our thoughts and words, so this little volume seemed perfect.

[Read more…] about How I Started My Audiobook Publishing Company

Karen’s Primer on Narrating Royalty Share Audiobooks

Last updated 1/11/23

 

One of my mentors, who is a prolific and award-winning audiobook narrator, advised me that it’s better to be working on spec than to be idle. Working on spec enables you to build your portfolio and hone your craft as a narrator.

As a result, I now use royalty share audiobooks from ACX to fill holes in my schedule. You may find that certain audio publishers also want to pay in a royalty share agreement. All of my experience with royalty share work is through ACX, so all of my comments below pertain to that system.

If you have no experience in doing audiobooks, you might want to first volunteer your time. When I restarted my audiobook career, I first recorded a book for LibriVox. I outlined the many reasons and advantages of this project in my post Reasons to Create Your Own Stuff. Note that one big advantage in volunteering is that you will be able to figure out your most efficient workflow — i.e., learning how to punch-in — under no time pressure while simultaneously adding to world literacy.

The one big downside with doing a LibriVox book is that anyone can use your work — including those who harvest your recordings to train AI speech — without compensating you because you donate the completed audiobook to the public domain. Juan Carlos Bagnell wrote an excellent article on his blog about this practice. My LibriVox audiobook A Woman Who Went to Alaska is routinely offered for sale on eBay. I no longer recommend that people volunteer to record for LibriVox.

Instead, I highly encourage you to volunteer to read for your state’s reading service for the blind or Learning Ally to gain and improve skills, as well as provide a needed service to the world.

Also, even if you are a trained actor, you’ll want to watch this video for more info about ACX and a free performance coaching session from Pat Fraley, Scott Brick, and Hillary Huber.

Method

First, you should know that creating an audiobook requires a significant investment of time. As a conservative rule of thumb, an experienced narrator/team will need 6 hours in real time to produce 1 finished hour of audio, from pre-read to file upload. The amount of time needed will vary by a number of factors, including the type of text (some require more pronunciation research than others), the narrator’s experience level, whether the narrator is outsourcing editing and proofing, etc.

Therefore, be sure to pick a book you love as you will be spending a lot of time with it. Audition for any title that interests you and for which your voice and skills are a good fit, but choose carefully!

I used to hold off on doing auditions, thinking that several offers might come at once. More often than not, though, the rights holders can be very slow to make a selection and do not communicate with narrators/producers at all during the process. Now I audition routinely as each audition allows me to continue developing my storytelling skills by reading different authors and genres.

Still, I try to stack the odds of snagging a great book more in my favor by doing additional research before submitting an audition.

You can ask the rights holder how many copies are sold each month in other formats. One of my narrator colleagues won’t consider voicing a royalty share book unless the print sales are equal to at least 1,000 copies a month. However, the print sales aren’t always a good predictor of the sales for an audiobook. Just like the stock market, past performance of a book is no indicator of future sales.

Whether doing a book in a royalty share deal or pay per finished hour, I’ve found it very helpful to read the reviews of the book even before doing the audition. Many times the reviewers will point to a TV show or movie. These hooks into popular culture give you valuable insight as you develop your characterizations and performance. Reviewers also point out things like incorrect word usage or bad grammar.

I also evaluate the book by using the Amazon Look Inside feature. I choose to narrate books that have few if any curse words (and when used, they should be appropriate to the situation or dialogue and not gratuitous), no explicit sex or graphic violence, and no vampires/werewolves/zombies. I can search the book for these things and also get a better sense of the author’s writing style by reading all of the available excerpts. Sometimes the Kindle edition is offered for free, so I go ahead and download it.

I look at the author’s web site and blog.  This step would be even more important if you’re considering a self-published title. I want to know that an author is as serious about writing as I am about narrating. I want to see that they will work to promote their work even more than I do.

I like to pick books in a series, as I outlined on my Facebook fan page.

If you are chosen to narrate multiple books, you don’t have to start all of them immediately! You can communicate with the rights holder and suggest your dates before accepting the contract. You may even build up a queue of work to perform in this manner.

Royalty share work should not come ahead of paying work. I always have 2-4 months on any royalty share contract so that I have the time to take on audiobooks and my regular voice-over work that pays up front. My view is: The rights holder can have it Fast. Good. Cheap. Pick any two.

I use Evernote during the book prep as I described in this Facebook comment.

I outsource my editing and quality review when I have a stipend. If I don’t have a stipend, I often edit the book myself.

Marketing

The publisher or author doesn’t always market the audiobook. Many of the titles on ACX are backlist and don’t have a marketing budget with them. Even if the rights holder did market the book, I still do my own marketing. I use social media extensively to get the word out.  In fact, I love marketing so much that I wrote 2 articles for the ACX blog on topic that are loaded with tips and tactics specific to marketing audiobooks. This article on my blog links to both of them.

I may also use Google+, a press release, and/or a video to promote my work. In fact, I created a book trailer for In The Shadow of Billy the Kid: Susan McSween and The Lincoln County War. I posted the video here on the blog and across social media.

In addition. I’ll create a Google alert for the topic and/or do specialized searches and comment on blogs, in forums, and any other place where people discuss it. For instance, I’ve already mentioned my upcoming audiobook on the Facebook page for the movie Young Guns, which is about Billy The Kid. Someone commented about the birthday of the actress who played Susan McSween, so it was a great lead-in for my comment about the real woman! 🙂

I don’t do all of these things in one day or even in a week. Audiobook marketing is an on-going task.

Money

It bears repeating that royalty share audiobooks are a lot like the stock market: you can have some with amazing returns and some that are under-performers.

Generally, you won’t make a lot of money on just one book. It takes many royalty share books to generate sales for a sizable royalty check each month. Also, realize that your proceeds for each book will build up over time. The royalty agreement with Audible lasts for 7 years.

My sales numbers range from 14 copies (yes, only 14 units sold) on one book to another book with 1000s of copies sold, with an average payment of $2.70-3.00 per unit sold. While you think you will receive 25% of the proceeds, your net percentage is actually less since many of Audible’s members buy the books using their credits. Audible’s very nice Bounty Program pays $25.00 for each applicable sale and has made up for the lower royalty rates in my case.

If I had narrated only that one book with 14 units sold, I probably would still be waiting for a royalty check since you must have $10 in royalties before Audible issues payment. Direct deposit payments usually come around the 17th-20th of the next month, and checks arrive at the end of the next month.

Regardless of the type of payment you choose, you will receive a royalty statement each month for sales the previous month. You can monitor units sold in the ACX Dashboard, but you won’t know how much you earned for each title until you receive the printout. Statements usually arrive the last week of the next month or first week of the 2nd month following the sales period.

If Audible is paying a stipend on your book, note that the rights holder must APPROVE the finished product within 60 days of the date you signed the contract. Once you have the approval, you must send the invoice to Audible in order to be paid. You can find the invoice template in the Stipend Terms and Conditions link on this page. The Time to Decimal Conversion is very handy when determining your finished time for the invoice.

Whispersync, the new technology that lets a reader switch between reading the Kindle e-book and listening to the Audible audiobook, could affect your royalties in two ways. On the one hand, the audiobook price is lower when the purchaser already has the Kindle edition. The royalties earned on the sale therefore would be lower as well. On the other hand, before Whispersync, people either bought the e-book or the audiobook — not both.

In my experience, Whispersync does actually encourage additional sales, which brings royalties that I would not otherwise have. These sales usually earn less than $1 per unit sold. However, it’s one case where you truly can “make up the difference in volume” because you don’t have on-going costs. Whispersync sales may be a case of whether you view the glass as half full or half empty.

My best sales periods have been December/January, where people are buying presents or later using gift cards, and April-June, when people seem to stock up for their poolside and vacation entertainment.

Audible sales are the gift that keeps on giving! Not only do you rack up more units sold in a shorter period, but those sales can get your book on the old royalty escalator for a higher royalty rate if you signed your contract before 12 March 2014.

I also set up an affiliate account with Audible. I use my affiliate link each time I publicize my titles. You can find my explanation of it in this Facebook post. More helpful tips are included in this post. So far, I’ve had a lot of clicks but no affiliate sales. Given time, though, I’m sure that some of those clicks will be converted to sales. I just created an affiliate account with iTunes.

Miscellaneous

Some of the posts above were in the Facebook Audiobook Crowd group, which consists of professional narrators and industry insiders, and the Facebook ACX Narrators and Producers group. Both groups are closed and have active members. I highly encourage you to join both of these groups if you are an audiobook narrator.

My experience with ACX has always been wonderful. I was one of the original beta testers on the site and have been very excited by its growth. The support staff is nothing short of remarkable! They have been incredibly responsive to my emails. I continue to see improvements both in the site operations and the quality of titles posted for audition.

ACX also has an informative, interesting, and helpful blog. Lately, they have been educating the rights holders more about the process, and their efforts are paying off. I’ve had more communication from rights holders in the past week than in the last 6 months!

Thinking again of the advice from my mentor, let me leave you with this quote from author Neil Gaiman (you can substitute the word “narrate” where he says “write”):
I decided that I would do my best in the future not to write books just for the money. If you didn’t get the money, then you didn’t have anything. If I did work I was proud of, and I didn’t get the money, at least I’d have the work.

Original notebook image: iStockPhoto/Aania