This is an excerpt from Richard Rieman’s upcoming book “The Author’s Guide to Audiobook Creation” available this December from Breckenridge Press.
Why should you do an audiobook? You need to be part of the Audiobook Revolution!
Compared to Amazon’s twenty-five million plus titles, Audible has just 170,000 audiobooks available. Over the next five years, Amazon expects that number to grow to over one million audiobooks.
You might think e-books are the fastest growing book publishing format. Nope. Audiobooks are by far the fastest growing way people read and listen to books.
Almost half (46%) of people say they have listened to an audiobook. Why? Audiobook buyers love the convenience of listening, especially on those long car trips or commutes.The average American work commute is about 50 minutes each day, or just over four hours a week, and it’s just getting longer!
People primarily listen in cars, while exercising, or doing mindless housework and multi-tasking. The fastest growing way people listen to audiobooks is on their smartphones!
The 2015 Audio Publishers Association (APA) survey reported a 20% increase in audiobook sales compared to 6% for e-books and just over a 4% increase in sales in the overall book trade industry. The APA estimates that current audiobook annual sales will total more than $2 billion dollars.
The cost of recording an audiobook has fallen from around $25,000 in the late 1990s, when most audiobooks we recorded in major LA and New York City studios, to less than $3,000 now, thanks to the explosion of home recording studios. There is also the option of sharing royalties with a narrator on Amazon’s ACX (Audio Creation Exchange), and having no up-front costs at all.
Amazon’s Audible has over 30 original audio works and more in the pipeline. The first was “The Starling Project” narrated by Alfred Molina with a full cast. It was written by bestselling thriller writer Jeffery Deaver and it’s more like a radio drama than a book.
And there’s the audio listening experience itself. You may think you have read Harry Potter, but if you listen to the brilliant narrator Jim Dale, J.K. Rowling’s universe will come alive in an incredible way the books and movies couldn’t capture.
You’re an author. Should you have an audiobook as well as an e-book, paperback, or hardcover?
Absolutely. Your book should have a voice.
Richard Rieman. Richard is an Audio Book Shepherd, both narrating audiobooks and producing authors narrating their own books at a professional recording studio in Denver. Richard has narrated over 25 fiction and non-fiction titles on Amazon, Audible, and iTunes. He has been a pirate, a cowboy, a bootlegger, six aliens, two monsters, and the voice of the best-selling “eBay 2015” and “The Indie Author’s Toolbox.” Richard is author of “Author’s Guide to Audio Book Creation” available November 2015 from Mile High Press. RRVoice.com [email protected]