by Stephen Woodfin)
Now that we have the Book of the Moment Club up and running on Venture Galleries, I find myself searching Audible.com for books to list on the site.
I feel like a kid in a candy store as I see the various genres, listen to the audio retail samples.
But something is missing.
Your book.
If you are an author with a book on Amazon, you should give serious consideration to producing it as an audiobook, for audiobooks are the wave of the future.
It is a simple proposition.
Listeners can’t discover your book in audio format if it doesn’t exist.
Thanks to Audiobook Creation Exchange ("ACX") authors in the United States, and now the United Kingdom, have a portal for the production and distribution of audiobooks. ACX exists to hook authors, “rights holders,” up with voice over talent and audio producers.
The genius of ACX is that audiobook production can occur without an author paying any up front costs. Rather, under one of the ACX models authors and narrator/producers can share royalties in exchange for the creation of the audiobook. The typical royalty under ACX is 40%, and the usual split between author and narrator/producer is fifty-fifty. That means the author can have an audiobook produced and retain a 20% royalty without spending a dime.
It is a win-win for authors and producers.
ACX distributes the audiobooks to Amazon, Audible and iTunes.
In fairness, there is one downside to the royalty shares program. An author may post her book for auditions and get no takers. In other words, no one is obligated to audition for the part. This is strictly a business decision on the part of would-be narrator/producers because they must believe going in that the book will sell on Audible. If it doesn’t they will have invested all the time it takes to produce the audiobook and receive nothing in return.
Even if no one auditions, the author still has the option to produce a self-narrated version of the book, a process ACX embraces. ACX has excellent material on its site which provides information abut how to produce books in a home studio.
However, many authors have books with good sales numbers established in print and/or eBook formats and still haven’t tapped into audiobooks.
The decision to explore this additional avenue of sales and exposure looks to me like a no brainer.
So, if you are an author with a book on Amazon, consider ACX, and jump on the audiobook train.
*Blogger's note: A lot of people are now listening to books. This was always an option but now audible has cornered the market and books are coming out on Audible.com. I have listened to one and it was good. We have to just learn that, like ebooks, this is something that is now something that is new and we all have to get on board! This article was good advice for author's/ I have spoke to a lot of woman who listen to books while they are cleaning and now that the warm weather is coming, you can bring your headphones and your phone down to the beach and listen there.
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