Jules Brooke runs courses that help businesses get media coverage. Handle your own PR asked us to help publish a recorded 6 week webinar series. Jules was delighted and said: “Working with Dave to record a series of audio books about PR was super easy. I expected there to be all sorts of requirements where I would need to do additional work, before the audio would be finished but it wasn’t like that at all. I found him to be fast at doing the editing and production, helpful with suggestions for how to improve the presentation, like including music and chapter intros and a delight to work with. I totally recommend working with Dave if you want great service, a quality recording and someone who makes it an enjoyable and easy process”.
Susan Spelic – advocate for The Reading Mountain helps children with reading reluctance. Susan’s books are dyslexia friendly and it has been shown that auditory learning aids do help. We have recorded 5 of her books in English and Mandarin. Susan had this to say about her experience with us, “Working with Dave Stokes at author2audio has been a ‘3P’ experience, a Professional, Positive and Productive experience”.
Hunter Leonard of Blue Frog Marketing will always be our first client, and with another half dozen published books we’ll be following his first audio book with interest. Hunter has been very complimentary and had this to say “Dave and the team from author2audio really brought my marketing book to life. For an author and business owner it’s all about having assets that help your customers. And now with my audiobook I’ve got another asset, that suits the small business owner who prefers to listen rather than read. The process was smooth professional and simple – which is important, as I didn’t have a lot of time free to even think about how to do it thanks guys”. Hunter Leonard – Founder & CEO Blue Frog Marketing
The same is not true of all audio book distributors. AudioBooks.com (via Author’s republic) for example will create an International Standard Book Number (ISBN), and publish your audio book regardless of whether the book has been published in any other version e.g. eBook. With a faster time to market and lower cost you may be able to use your audio book sales, to finance the publication of your eBook or printed copy versions. Worth considering!
If you are looking to list your audio book for sale on iTunes or Audible, or to those distributors through an aggregate distributor such as Authors Republic, you will need an Amazon Sales Inventory Number (ASIN). In effect you need to have published your book or eBook to iTunes or Amazon, BEFORE you can publish your audio book. The ASIN is like a grouping code for all the different versions of a publication like print; eBook; audio version; etc. Audible use the ASIN to ‘match make’ your audio book with other existing versions of your book.
All publishers want an exclusive. True? In part yes it is true and you will be rewarded with a higher royalty for an exclusive arrangement. On the other hand you could ensure greater exposure for your audio book, over a larger number of online retailers by sacrificing a percentage of your royalty . So be creative!
There are two big factors to consider before you choose your audio book sales channels, exclusivity and barriers to entry.
Listings with multiple outlets has never been easier, and the increasingly hungry appetites for audio would seem to guarantee a shortage of audio book product. Besides it makes good business sense to distribute widely, and author’s are likely to gain from the upward pressure on royalty percentages, as supply pressure increases for the large retailers
How on earth can you hope to get you audio book distributed across all the major and boutique outlets? Well, I’m glad you asked me! Online retailing has made it much easier for distributors to distribute for other distributors. Have a look at the Authors Republic and Findaway Voices websites. See if you can spot the absence of any publisher or on line retailer.