selling more with an audio book

Are you missing an opportunity with not having an audio format of your book? The standard format of course for most books tends to be either eBook and/or printed, which is fine and serves authors well, but think of the additional audience you would be able to reach if you had it in audio too.

People listening to your book while at the gym, walking the dog, at work, on a long journey or simply just relaxing at home, the possibilities are vast and an audio version makes consuming a great book incredibly easy.

But many authors dismiss this opportunity for lots of reasons, maybe they don’t have the time or inclination to record their own book, it could be a cost restriction or simply lack of knowledge on how to even start the process.

The good news is that it’s a lot easier than you may have thought and using Audiobook Creation Exchange www.acx.com will help you from start to finish, ACX is part of Amazon so you’ll be able to publish via Amazon, Audible and even iTunes.

You have a couple of options in creating an audio version of your book, either you read it yourself or you get a narrator to do the job for you, using ACX you have the option for both and it will guide you through the process step-by-step.

If you are reading it yourself then you will need to take in to consideration some of the following:

• Keeping a consistent sound level and formatting
• Your files need to be free of outtakes and extraneous sounds (make sure you have a quite room to record in and use a professional mic with a guard).
• You must include opening and closing credits
• You’ll need a retail sample which is 1-5 mins long
• The overall recording normally needs to be broken down into individual chapters recorded as separate files and no longer than 120 mins
• And it must be narrated by an actual human voice, not text-to-speak software
• (You’ll also find that there will be recommendations for specific sound levels)

If this sounds like too much work, then you can always use a professional narrator to do the job for you, again, this is something that ACX offers.

You will need to set up an account with ACX and prepare a 1-2 page excerpt from your book, this will get used as an audition script for potential narrators. You then post your book or invite narrators to audition, after this you’ll be able to review the auditions and select your preferred narrator.

It’s at this point that you work out the costs of the narration and make an offer to the narrator, if they accept then you have a deal and move forward with the process. They then record a small part of the book (usually 15 mins) and get back to you for approval, once you’re happy they’ll then record the full book.

Once completed, ACX distributes your audio book through Amazon, Audible and iTunes, from here you can then shout about it to your existing audience and promote like crazy.

So, there is a little more work involved but it does offer the professional author a huge opportunity to reach an audience that would have been missed otherwise, we’re seeing more and more writer’s use this format, isn’t it time you stayed ahead of the game too?