How To Market Your Audiobook
The project is finally complete! The chapters have been recorded, edited, QC’d, and mastered. You’ve approved them, and ACX has passed them through their own quality check.
Now what?
It’s time to pull on your marketing hat and get the word out.
As you probably already know, the vast majority of your marketing will happen through social media. There are a wealth of resources on how to grow your following and what to do, so I won’t go into too much depth here, but I will offer a few tips that may help you on your way.
Once we address that, we’ll get into some more audiobook-specific tactics.
Social Media Marketing Basics
Platforms
This can change at a moment’s notice; what I’m posting here now may be outdated in 2 weeks as new platforms rise and old ones fall into obscurity. For the moment, though, these are the sites you should be on:
Facebook: Yes, you should be on Facebook, even if the “kids” aren’t using it anymore, or you aren’t a fan of the platform. Facebook’s primary demographic right now are people in the 50s, 60s, and 70s (and older), and this can be a prime audience for your book and audiobook.
Twitter: Yes, Twitter can be simultaneously a wonderland and post-apocalyptic hellscape depending on who you follow and what terms you have muted, but it remains one of the most popular social platforms, and you should be on it.
LinkedIn: While it’s primarily known as a business networking site, it is currently behaving more like Facebook was 10 years ago in terms of content sharing. Also, if you have written a book on business or some other nonfiction subject, this could be fertile ground.
Instagram: Still a very popular site as of this writing, it has some good features that can help elevate your book’s profile, though it can still be a little clunky in terms of directly driving traffic to your site.
TikTok: Currently the fastest growing social platform, and rapidly aging up. Organic reach was enormous 7 months ago in August/September 2019, and while it has started to drop off, it is still the easiest site to grow a following.
Soundcloud: Mostly for musicians, this may also be a good place to be for sharing clips from the audiobook and driving traffic to a site where people can purchase the book and audiobbok.
This may seem like a lot to manage, but I’ll show you some tactics that will make this very simple for you, so don’t stress about it. Take some time to get your account on all of these or any other platforms you think may be appropriate.
Personal account or Business account?
If given the choice, I would recommend setting up business pages on each of your social accounts (with the exception of Twitter, which does not offer that option). This will give you access to metrics that can be useful should you decide to dive deeper into who your audience is, and it gives you a bit of a buffer between your personal and public life.
Building a following
Obviously if you don’t have any followers on a platform, you’ll essentially be talking to an empty room.
Do not buy followers.
It’s a bad tactic, and many platforms will now ban you or suspend your account if you do this.
Be patient.
Take your time to interact with other people in your community (writers, fantasy fans, history buffs, business gurus, etc) and with people who share your passions. Building a solid fan base or following takes time, and it can be painfully slow.
Quality matters more than quantity.
Don’t worry about the vanity metrics of how many followers you have or how quickly it’s growing. Concentrate on being authentic to yourself. It doesn’t matter if you get to 1k follower in 10 days or 10 years…and it doesn’t matter if you even get to that number.
“How you get your followers is more important than how many followers you have.”
Gary Vaynerchuk
Share. Give. Share. Then Give Some more.
Don’t think of social as a selling platform. Rather, think of it as a way of sharing content and your joy and passions with others. If you start by “selling” (i.e. “Buy my book”) or pushing that message too much, people will tune you out. But if you focus on offering as much value as you can, you’ll win more dedicated fans and when you eventually do make the ask, they will be more likely to click that link.
As I mentioned before, there are plenty of resources out there about how to build a social media following, so I won’t go into further detail here. One resource I recommend is the Gary Vee podcast…he is relentlessly positive, and has a great mind for social marketing. Just be ready for some foul language…he’s from Jersey.
Audiobook Marketing Tactics
Note #1: depending on the platform you use, you may not have any control over when the audiobook releases. ACX, for example, does not offer a “go live” option; once the audiobook has finished going through their own quality check process, ACX will simply make the book live and push it to Audible and iTunes, so timing it with the release of your ebook/physical book would be difficult.
Note #2: to the right of the text here I’ll put some suggestions for how to easily create some content for multiple platforms, making the job of content creation easier for you and less overwhelming.
Note #3: be patient. Don’t expect overnight success, and don’t be disappointed if sales don’t rocket in the first few days or weeks, or even months. It may take time to see audibook sales take off, and that’s OK. Play the long game.
Note #4: remember the 80/20 rule. For every post you make that could be considered “promotional” (i.e. not purely sharing content), there should be 4-5 posts that are only value-laden with no ask or no “look at me” element. You could even push this ratio further, and when you do, the “promotional” posts will have even more punch.
Market the book and audiobook together
Don’t treat them as separate entities; rather, treat this as a menu of options. Some people may prefer the ebook or paperback version, whereas others may want to consume it on the way to work as an audiobook.
Use promo codes
If you distribute through ACX, you will get promo codes that give people free access to the audiobook for review purposes.
Be warned: many an author have been burned by people who have gotten the code from them only to use it for a free copy with no intention of reviewing it. Make sure you are sharing it with a) reputable people who will take the time to write a review, and b) have enough of a following where it matters.
Before you start sharing the codes: have you been interacting with this reviewer prior to asking them if they want a code? Are you only going to them for the review? There isn’t a right answer here, as some reviewers may want it that way, but in today’s social media landscape it’s better to have a relationship before making the ask.
Post Reviews
Once you have gotten some reviews, either solicited or organically, share those reviews. Take a screen capture of the review and the 5 stars and post it to your channels.
Work with your narrator
Working with a narrator with a social media following can be a great asset, as they may share the audiobook links once the project is complete and help drive traffic to the distribution site. Ask them prior to starting if that’s something that they would be comfortable doing (though don’t get upset if they say that they aren’t, some may not be).
Something that Shami Stovall and I did for Coliseum Arcanist was to do a few “behind the scenes” videos, something the people in her Facebook group wanted to see. Putting together something fun like this for your followers would be a good way to generate some excitement around the release.
(Please note: I have a background in video production, so this was a relatively easy project for me to complete. Don’t expect this of your narrator. And it doesn’t need to be this involved, it can simply be video of you and your narrator speaking about the production and writing. I would again point you to Gary Vaynerchuk’s content: he’s a very popular person on social media, and he doesn’t use high production value.)
Host a launch party
Create an online event through something like Facebook or Google Calendar and invite your friends and family and fans to attend. They’ll get a notification for when your books are released.
Kick it up a notch and turn it into a Zoom hangout or live chat where you and the narrator have a chat about the book and answer questions from your fans and followers. During the live event, you could offer giveaways of autographed copies of the book or free copies of the audiobook, or the narrator could give away a custom outgoing voicemail message for someone in a character’s voice.
Submit for awards
There are several awards that an audiobook may be eligible for.
Audie Awards (Audio Publishers Association)
The Earphones Award (AudioFile Magazine)
The Odyssey Award (American Library Association)
Voice Arts Award (Society of Voice Arts and Sciences)
Ask for reviews
There is nothing wrong with asking your readers/listeners to offer up a good (or great!) review if they like your work. This can often help within Amazon’s or Audible’s (or other platforms) ranking algorithm to help push your work to the top of searches.
Mention the audiobook in your podcast
Use your existing platform to talk about the book and audiobook. Maybe offer up a promo code for your listeners to redeem for a free copy or for a discount. (If you do this, make it a limited-time offer, as podcasts are evergreen, and you need to create a sense of urgency.)
What? You don’t have a podcast? Well, in that case, do you have friends who have podcasts, or know of existing podcasts where you could bring value to their audience (not just through the sale/offer of your book)? Ask the producer if they are looking for guests.
Upload clips to SoundCloud or other sharing sites
Work with your narrator on this*; they may have some suggestions for the best clips to pull (a fun character voice, a funny moment, or a part where they really feel they knocked it out of the park). They can also pull some of these clips and get them into an appropriate format for you to post in various platforms.
By offering up little clips here and there and including the link to where people can get the rest of it, you are providing value and also hopefully whetting their appetites for the rest of the story.
* Make sure to ask your narrator if they want to be this involved; they may not have the time to do this. In that case, you can ask them if it’s OK that they use certain clips or if they have suggestions, and then it’s on you to get those clips from the files provided. Also don’t be angry if they aren’t in a position to help you out.
Content Creation Tip
Grab a picture of your front cover, and of your narrator (if they have a headshot they can share) and maybe even of yourself and share these photos on your social sites. Change the accompanying writing and hashtags to be relevant to the platform they are going on. Good for:
Post this on:
Content creation tip
Broadcast this chat live via Facebook Live, Intagram Live, Twitter Live, YouTube Live, Twitch, or other platforms (or all if your computer and bandwidth can handle it) and record it, either with the conferencing application (Zoom, Skype, etc) or through the platform. Then take clips of interesting or funny 1-2 minute parts (even if for purely entertainment value) and share them via your social platforms (re-purposing the content you already made). Good for:
See the tip above, the same tactics could be used here.
Content Creation Tip
Blog about the process, or ask your narrator to blog about the process of applying. Create a hashtag for the nomination process that is fun and relevant. For example, when Shami Stovall and I were trying to get ACX to expedite the release of Coliseum Arcanist, we started using #FreeVolkeSavan, Volke Savan being the main character of the series.
See the tip above about posting reviews, and don’t forget the 80/20 rule mentioned at the top of this section.
Content Creation tip
All of the subject matter above could be a potential topic of your podcast, as could your thoughts on the writing process, your favorite books in your favorite genres. Make this easy, though: start a podcast using Anchor.fm (it’s free) and have guests on, and let them do the heavy lifting. Then write a blog post about the podcast. Take clips from the podcast and share them as mp3s via SoundCloud, or create video, either by capturing the interview when it happens or using a site like Wavve to create easy animations from your audio. Share the podcast, clips, and blog posts on your channels
