What do you think of audiobooks? Do you know any narrators? ACX, audios and a Cupcake project.

Hi all:

I don’t know what you think about audiobooks. Over the years I’ve listened to some, fiction and non-fiction but probably love reading so much that I’d miss it. But the best audiobooks can be amazing.

I have had one of my books turned into an audiobook. Escaping Psychiatry.

 

Escaping Psychiatry audio. Cover by Ernesto Valdés, narration by Alan Cooke

The process how it became an audio was not your usual way (this being me). I met Alan Cooke, an Emmy Award winning writer, actor and director, through Facebook, and became fascinated by his work, films, videos, and also his readings and audios, both of his own books and of well-known stories. Another writer and good friend of mine, Martie Preller, had published a book of short tales/stories, The Seventh Sheep, and I thought they would sound fantastic narrated by Alan. It first started with one of the stories, but I liked it so much that as a surprise, I got the four stories done for her. The results were amazing although due to technical difficulties (and the peculiarities of the system) it is not on sale as an audio. But you can listen to them in Martie’s blog, here.  Then I thought I’d like to have one of the stories of Escaping Psychiatry in audio format, and one thing let to another.

One of the difficulties at that time was that ACX (now owned by Amazon) was the main option to distribute audios to the big players, including Amazon and Apple’s i-Tunes. And unfortunately you needed to be a resident in the US (for tax reasons) to be able to distribute your audio through ACX. And I wasn’t. I queried this, and in April this year they e-mailed me to let me know that now residents in the UK could also use their services, and I did. Having followed their instructions into how to record the audio, downloading it wasn’t a problem and it all went pretty smoothly. (You don’t even need to have a separate account with ACX if you already have one with Amazon.)

Here are the links in Amazon:

http://bit.ly/1rMoqtz

And i-Tunes:

http://bit.ly/1rU3KSG

Just in case you fancy a sample, this is a video I created sharing some of the narration of the first story:

http://youtu.be/oZyVpOdgqtc

Most of the posts about audiobooks suggest they are up and coming, they are going to boom soon, and the market is not as saturated as it is for either paper or e-books. Yet.

Although you don’t have access to promotions KDP style, and the prices are higher due to technical constraints, Audible sends you up to 25 free codes (in my case I got some for .com and .co.uk) that you can use to promote the audio, and if somebody is not already an Audible Client, they get the first audiobook free (and you have a bonus if this happens with one of your audios, or $50).

What has my audiobook done so far? Well, I can’t say it’s been a roaring success, although it has sold more (especially considering that I haven’t promoted it much and it has only been on sale from June) than the actual book, and I got one of the bonus sales. The sales pattern seems similar to standard books. It peaks when it is new on sale and then it goes down.

In the case of my audiobook I got it done and paid for it myself. You can do the same through ACX too, rather than having to find your own by your own means. But ACX offers  you the chance of posting your book as a project and then partnering with a narrator/producer, and splitting up the royalties. That shares both the risks and the benefits. Of course, depending on the interest generated you might get many offers or not.

I’ve decided to give it a go, and here is my project for I Love Your Cupcakes.

I Love Your Cupcakes by Olga Núñez Miret. Cover by Lourdes Vidal

https://www.acx.com/titleview/AJXZ5XZSZ0XTH

If you know any voice artists, narrators or producers who might be interested (or you do narrations), or you can recommend somebody, let me know!

Ah, and I still have some of the free codes for my Escaping Psychiatry audio, so if you’d like one…just ask. If many people are interested…I’ll think of something!