In Part I and Part II of Producing an Audiobook, I discussed the nuts and bolts of using ACX as an audiobook publisher, from an author’s point of view (Part I) and the narrators point of view (Part II). In Part III, the final post in the series, I’m going to discuss marketing your ACX audiobook.
Now, before I get started, it’s important to note that ACX exclusive audiobooks are sold only on Audible.com, iTunes, and Amazon. While that’s a wide distribution network, which might get wider with non-exclusive distribution if you’re willing to hustle, to the best of my knowledge, all libraries use OverDrive for their audiobook catalogue. What that means is that your ACX title will not be picked up any libraries. Since the files are encrypted by ACX, traditional reviewers who use MP3 technology also won’t review.
So, how do you get listeners? As with every other form of marketing, you need to reach your target audience, and ideally, that audience will post a positive review. The more positive reviews, the better your odds of getting someone to pony up the money or one of their Audible credits for your book.
Now, the nice thing about ACX is that they will provide (on request) 25 free coupon codes for your Audible.com (US and Canada) and 25 free coupon codes for Audible.co.uk (for UK users only). But who do you send your codes to, beyond a handful of family or friends who might download your book anyway?
Suzanne T. Fortin, the narrator of THE HANGED MAN’S NOOSE, recommended Audiobook Boom! This service costs the promoter $10US (it’s free to sign up as a listener). While Suzanne tested it for NOOSE, I tested it for SKELETONS IN THE ATTIC.
Once your ad is submitted and approved, the Audiobook Boom (ABB) ad will run from Tuesday to Monday, and is emailed to their genre-specific list. The Mystery category, for example, reaches up to 2,600 people (there are certain parameters, i.e. is there sex, bad language etc., which could reduce the number of people reached). ABB creates a spreadsheet shared on Google Docs, and notifies the promoter when requests are received. Here’s where the promoter has to do their homework. You absolutely must check the Audible Profile of every requester, using the following criteria:
Do They Have a Profile? (There are some folks who request a code and do not)
Do They Post Reviews? No or infrequent reviews….pass!
Are the Posted Reviews Recent? If the last review was 2016, for example, it isn’t a good investment of your precious review codes.
Are the Reviews Fair? While honest reviews are appreciated (books are rated 1-5 on Story, Narration and Overall), I’ve had some review requests from reviewers who seem to hate everything. The odds that they’ll love your audiobook are pretty slim.
Do They Listen to Your Genre? Let’s say that your requestor has so far passed all the hurdles. If your book is Sci-Fi and they only listen to Non-Fictional works focusing on World War II, it’s not going to be a good fit.
Once you’ve decided who to send your free codes to, you will need to email each requestor individually, with a request to leave an honest review. There’s no guarantee they will review, but if you’ve done your due diligence, you should bat about 90%.That’s pretty good. As for the Google Docs spreadsheet, it’s online for a limited time, so you are best to download it, along with your notes, (i.e. Yes, Feb. 15 or No, no reviews) and store it on your computer. Be sure to update the spreadsheet when someone reviews, along with the rating, i.e. Reviewed 5/4/4. Doing this really helped me when I used ABB for LIVE FREE OR TRI because I saw a lot of repeat requestors. Information is power!
Donna Galanti
Are there any other promotional audiobook services? Author, Donna Galanti is no stranger to traditional book marketing, but she knew that “marketing my first audiobook required research. First off, I knew I wanted to build up reviews to create more exposure. I purchased for A Human Element through The Audio Book Worm. I received quite a few reviews through this tour. I also reached out to all of the book bloggers and reviewers who reviewed the e-book/print book version of my book (and liked it!) and asked if they’d enjoy reviewing the audiobook. Since they reviewed it on Amazon already, I emphasized my request for them (and all reviewers) to post their review direct on Audible. Amazon and Audible are two different websites and don’t pull reviews from each other as you can see here:
A Human Element Audiobook on Audible
A Human Element Audiobook on Amazon
I also launched a free Thunderclap campaign for the audiobook release that had a social media reach of 1,473,602. I recommend starting your campaign 60 days in advance to get the minimum 100 promoters required to launch your campaign for free. With all of these techniques and promotion on social media, especially Twitter retweet groups, I was able to achieve several bestseller and top 10 through top 100 lists in different categories the week my book released. With book 2 in my series coming out this year, I’m looking to try different promotions. I’ll be researching advertising sites that focus on audiobooks like http://audavoxx.com/, https://audiobookboom.com/, and http://audiobookradio.net./”
Still need marketing ideas? You can also search for book reviewers on your own to coordinate your own blog tour. A simple Google search of “audiobook reviewers” will bring up several contacts. In addition, ACX offers social media tips, as well as a Marketing checklist, which you can find here. There is also an ACX blog, which you can sign up for here. You can also encourage non-Audible users to sign up for a free trial starting with your audiobook! Here’s an example of a page I created using the ACX instructions.
I’m sure there are plenty of other audiobook promotional services and/or ideas out there and would love to hear any and all suggestions (especially once all free review codes have been distributed).
So that’s a wrap on this Producing an Audiobook series. I hope you found it interesting and would love to hear your comments. Happy Listening!
Great series of article. Thanks, Judy.
Thanks for reading. If you decide to go for it and have any questions, feel free to email me.
Thanks for sharing all this great info about audiobooks, Judy! And thanks for including me!
Thank you Donna for sharing your wonderful insights!
Informative post, thank you. I’m a long way off from creating an audiobook version of my writing, but this is great information to help a beginner like myself learn the ins and outs. I’d not heard of Thunderclap before so I will have to check it out for future reference. Thanks for the information.
I’m glad it was helpful, Katia. Be sure to check out Posts 1 and 2, or bookmark them for future! All the best to you and thanks for stopping by.
Thanks for sharing Joanne. I hope the series was of help to you. Shall we be listening to Gilda Greco one of these days?
Excellent post chock full of practical advice! I’ve shared with other authors in my loops.