Audiobooks are not a new trend by any means, but they still have plenty to offer aspiring and successful authors alike. As of October 2019, audiobook sales have rapidly increased. By the end of 2019, the growth nearly put them on par with their text equivalents. Once you have decided to make an audiobook either by narrating it yourself or paying a professional, you must choose where to publish your masterpiece.
Assuming you want to be self-published with your audiobooks, you will rely on digital marketplaces to support your independent publishing. When your audiobook is published, remember to promote it actively. Promotions include audio samples in your newsletters for subscribed followers and linking your audiobooks to their text formats.
Where to Publish
ACX.com is a good start for self-publishing your audiobooks. This marketplace belongs to Amazon, so your audiobooks distributions include Audible and iTunes. The caveat to using ACX.com requires you to own the rights to make the audiobook legally. If you are a self-published author on Amazon Kindle, for example, you must claim your book on Amazon to link it to your ACX account. The site will provide guidelines to do this.
Kobo Writing Life (KWL) is another solid choice for publishing audiobooks. This marketplace has a sister company, Overdrive. The two companies work in tandem and provide promotions for distributing your audiobooks. KWL and Overdrive will work together to ensure your audiobooks can reach audiences in libraries, Walmarts, and more.
Findaway Voices is the third recommended marketplace. Findaway reaches similar markets as KWL, including similar global audiences. This marketplace offers the benefit of matching you with professional narrators or publish self-narrated. You control whether the prices of your audiobooks are different between retail and library markets. You also decide whether you sell directly to listeners.
Pricing Your Audiobooks
If you want total control over the prices of your audiobooks, choose Findaway Voices. You have full reign over whether your audiobooks will have discounted prices, the costs will be the same across the board, and whether there will be promotional prices like a bundled series. The more experienced or renowned authors choose this marketplace.
When you are stepping into the audiobook industry for the first time, consider starting with ACX. The prices are predetermined based on audiobook length, and all promotions are determined by Audible because of the pricing systems that make it easier for listeners to pay less than the full retail price. The details for how it works is provided in ACX’s royalty statement if you want more information.
KWL also allows you to set your prices, but you cannot have different prices between retail and library. It also makes it easy to convert your prices to other currencies. You must be mindful when letting the site auto-convert currency prices for you. The conversions will be exact, so your $2.99 in USD will become $2.89 in another currency, like CAD. If you want the prices to be $2.99 across the board, you must change the prices manually.
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