Episode Summary
Karen White brings her experience as a narrator, director, and founder of her boutique audiobook marketing company Home Cooked Books to talk about producing and promoting your audioboooks.
Episode Notes
After working in the audiobook industry from 1998 – 2022 as a narrator, director, producer, and serving on committees of both the Audiobook Publishers’ Association and SAG-AFTRA, as well as publishing her own romantic comedies as Karen Grey, Karen White created a boutique audiobook marketing company called Home Cooked Books.
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Transcript
Kevin Tumlinson [00:00:01]:
You just tuned into the hippest way to start and grow your indie author career. Learn the ins, the outs, and all the all arounds of self publishing with the team from d two d and their industry influencing guests. You’re listening to self publishing insiders with Draft2Digital.
Jim Azevedo [00:00:25]:
Is that not the grooviest intro music?
Karen White [00:00:27]:
I’ve got to listen to the music.
Jim Azevedo [00:00:31]:
Well, welcome, everybody. Welcome, Karen, to another edition of Self Publishing Insiders. Today, it is my privilege and honor to welcome Karen White to the show. I’ve known Karen for years now because we keep bumping into each other at conferences. But, Karen began working in the audiobook industry, way back from 1998, 1998 to 2022 as a narrator, a director, a producer. She served on committees of both the Audiobook Publishers Association and SAG AFTRA, as well as publishing her own romantic comedies as Karen Grey. Karen created a boutique audiobook marketing company called Home Cooked Books, Drawing from accumulated contacts in and knowledge of the industry, Home Cooked Books helps authors with every aspect of audiobook production from casting to promotion. Welcome, Karen.
Jim Azevedo [00:01:27]:
So happy that you’re here. And I think Karen might have froze. Oh, no. Well, before we’re gonna hope that Karen comes back, and, hopefully, you’re all still watching me. I’m I’m and I’m live. One thing Karen and I talked about before we kinda started this as we were backstage was that the audiobook industry and I’m so happy and excited to talk about it because audiobooks, as many of you know, it just tends to keep growing and growing and growing year over year over year. As a matter of fact, in the last decade, globally, I believe, the audiobook industry has grown, has has enjoyed double digit growth year over year for the past decade plus now. As a matter of fact, between 2012 2023, the compound annual growth rate for audiobooks in the US has been 20%, and that’s expected to increase.
Jim Azevedo [00:02:29]:
So right now, we’re looking at a market as of 2024 that’s about 6 and a half $1,000,000,000 expected to get up to 39,000,000,000 by 2032. What? So, you know, what has enabled this massive growth, and why does this growth keep on happening? This growth probably keeps on happening because we have multiple factors. We’ve got all of the ingredients. Hey. Welcome back, Karen. I’m talking about the where it went. I’m talking about the growth of the audiobook market. I’ve already talked about some of the stats, but I’m now gonna kinda shift into why that growth has happened.
Jim Azevedo [00:03:11]:
And what I was about to say is that, you know, we had all of these ingredients of that, you know, sort of that primordial soup, if you will. So we’ve got, like, we’ve got folks like Amazon and Apple Books and Spotify who’ve made it really, really easy for these huge, audiences of of of people to to listen to books very, very easily. And other factors include, you know, mobile technology, our phones, other mobile devices. Of course, user adoption is just exploding. Yeah. And then, again, these ubiquitous platforms like Apple, Amazon, and and others. Do you have any other thoughts on that, Karen?
Karen White [00:03:53]:
Well, I think a little bit of history that a lot of people don’t know is that Audible, it actually invented the MP 3 player. So they were initially a technology company. Mhmm. I mean, they wanted to move into, making audiobooks accessible digitally, but, so they created that technology and partnered with first with Apple, when they created the iPad. So they have been intermeshed partners for a long time. I think the other thing that Audible has done, is it there was pretty much right after Amazon acquired Audible, they poured a ton of money into advertising. If you lived in New York or in a big city, you would sudden you’re suddenly seeing I think this was about 10, 12 years ago. Billboards in or signs in subways, everywhere just talking about auto, audiobooks.
Karen White [00:04:57]:
Also, TV commercials, they were actually the first to, advertise on podcasts. They saw that interconnectivity really early on.
Jim Azevedo [00:05:07]:
So interesting.
Karen White [00:05:08]:
So I think for the indie author’s point of view, what’s interesting is that now we have Audible, which has a huge monopoly, and they have done us a great service in making it they also created ACX, which allowed indie authors to even publish audiobooks. Before that, it wasn’t possible. So they created a lot of opportunities for us, but they also kind of now have us over a barrel. So they make it
Jim Azevedo [00:05:42]:
Yeah.
Karen White [00:05:44]:
Unpleasant or financially and other ways to, publish your audiobooks elsewhere. So that’s the push pull that we’re in right now. I think we have a lot to be thankful for to Audible slash ACX as in the authors. But, there’s some pushback we can do, and we have a lot of other opportunities now from, working with libraries, through Hoopla, find a way, I mean, yeah, Hoopla and Overdrive, but also, there are libraries all over the world where you can, push your your audiobooks out, as well as all these other retailers that have that have sprung up. And in the new, book funnel has really made it possible as, to sell your books directly to consumers, which is a brand new thing. So a lot of what I talk about with my marketing clients is making the choice between being exclusive or wide
Jim Azevedo [00:06:55]:
Yep.
Karen White [00:06:56]:
Which is a very different choice than being exclusive or wide, with ebooks, and we can talk more about that.
Jim Azevedo [00:07:03]:
Yeah. We had that conversation ourselves quite a bit in the in the parallels of the of the, you know, the ebook market versus the audiobook market because the same thing happened, you know, before the publishing industry is democratized. It was a print centric industry, and then ebooks came along and then Apple I mean, I’m sorry. Amazon controlled not didn’t control, but they made it accessible to a lot more authors. But then they brought in, you know, the KDP Select, and they’re like, yay. Let’s keep this exclusive to Amazon. And then what we found is that over the years, the authors who are coming up that were newer to self publishing, they looked at Amazon as the end all be all. So there’s this whole new wave of education that has to happen to inform these authors that well, actually, there are many other opportunities to get your books in front of more readers, especially internationally.
Karen White [00:07:50]:
Yeah. I think the main difference there’s a lot of parallels, and a lot of the decisions are very similar. The big difference is that the whereas if you are in KU, the reader knows. If they are a KU reader and you are not in KU I mean, I’ve known I personally, distribute my my ebooks wide. Mhmm. And I have friends who have readers complaining to them that their books are not in KU.
Jim Azevedo [00:08:24]:
Oh, yeah.
Karen White [00:08:25]:
You have to explain to them why, you know, why you have make it made this choice. But to listeners, listeners don’t know the difference. And in fact, over the past 5, 6 years, audiobook listeners who have become ravenous, especially in genre fiction. Mhmm. They are looking for deals because they have to spend an audible credit every time they listen to a book. There’s not a all you can eat buffet like it is at KU. There are other companies now who have who have made that possible like Kobo and, couple other things like Scribd. What what what is Scribd called?
Jim Azevedo [00:09:12]:
Everand.
Karen White [00:09:13]:
Yes. Thank you. Everand, as well as libraries. But it’s it’s it that’s where it’s really different. It it the listeners are looking for you outside of Audible, whereas the KU reader wants you in KU. The non KU reader wants you outside.
Jim Azevedo [00:09:35]:
Yeah. Thank you for describing that perspective. That’s that’s that’s a excellent point to make.
Karen White [00:09:41]:
Yeah. Most authors don’t know that, until they get deep into it.
Jim Azevedo [00:09:46]:
Yeah. I wanted to ask you before we get into the some of the production and marketing questions, I wanted to ask you, you know, what is it that about audiobooks that really resonates with readers, you know, beyond so I can, you know, I can I could I can, access these books so easily, and it’s so easy to find them? And beyond that, you know, I could listen to an audiobook as I’m walking the the dog. From your perspective, you know, as especially as a narrator, what do you believe is the human qualities that’s driving listeners to to audiobooks?
Karen White [00:10:21]:
Well, you know, this is also a marketing question, because it is the narrator. It is the performance. It is Mhmm. The emotional experience that, that most listeners are looking for, in some genres more than others. Whenever you have characters going on a very emotional journey, whether that’s because it’s romance or a thriller, or a dystopian novel, the narrators really heighten that experience for the listener. I would argue because as a narrator, about, half of my work was nonfiction. I think a narrator, it really serves a book in nonfiction as well if the person is skilled. Mhmm.
Karen White [00:11:14]:
Because what you’re doing is breaking down language that is not necessarily meant to be listened to and making it listenable. Whereas a, a computer reading it, an AI narrator is not gonna be able to do that. It it it doesn’t hold the listener’s attention as well. One of the things, someone, a coach or director said to me really early on when I was narrating is that when you’re reading nonfiction, you have to I mean, we’re actors. Narrators are trained actors. They’re not just people with pretty voices. Yeah. Your job as a nonfiction narrator is to pretend, like, as if you did the 10 years of research that went into this book.
Karen White [00:12:02]:
You have that level of personal investment in it. That’s the acting challenge, and that makes it really fun. You know? I mean, I when I would finish reading, whether it was a book about the care of feeding of chickens or if it was about astrophysicist you know, physicist no. Astrophysics or, some history about the Panama Canal. I felt like I was a total expert by the time I finished recording that book. I would, of course, forget everything 2 weeks later, but in that moment, because I was pretending I was an expert and I bought into that. So that’s very long winded answer to your question. But,
Jim Azevedo [00:12:41]:
No. But you nailed it though. I think you because it’s all about that human experience and Yeah. Yeah, then you can only get that from a human.
Karen White [00:12:48]:
What is When
Jim Azevedo [00:12:48]:
it comes to the with the emotion, machines don’t have emotions.
Karen White [00:12:51]:
Right. But it’s also a craft, you know, because the actor’s craft is to be present when you’re not present. Right? So I have to create the illusion, and I kinda have to believe it myself that I am making up these words as I go along even though they are printed in front of me. You know, if I’m doing a theater or or film, I’ve memorized those words, and my job is to make it seem as though I am making them up as I go along. For the narrator, it’s it’s a different, so slightly different skill. It definitely requires, practice and coaching, to be able to read words off the page and, again, believe that I am making these words up as I go. And the that level of being present, is what hangs on to to the listener. I think what’s interesting about listeners is they all have different paths into audio.
Karen White [00:13:59]:
A lot
Jim Azevedo [00:13:59]:
of people are like, I
Karen White [00:14:00]:
I don’t like audiobooks. I can’t pay attention like that. I my mind wanders. But, there
Jim Azevedo [00:14:05]:
are a lot
Karen White [00:14:05]:
of ways that that people get sucked in anyway.
Jim Azevedo [00:14:09]:
Yeah. And
Karen White [00:14:10]:
a big part of it is being attached to specific narrators to it’s almost like to me, it’s like, both listening at all, but especially the way that listeners will cross genres.
Jim Azevedo [00:14:24]:
And that’s so interesting to me because I’ve heard of some narrators who, like, have bigger followers than the others.
Karen White [00:14:30]:
Yeah. And, to me, it’s like a really good trusted friend who convinces you to try an Indian restaurant even though you think you don’t like it. So Yeah. That’s a good analogy.
Jim Azevedo [00:14:41]:
You know,
Karen White [00:14:42]:
you only go to a steak restaurant or you only go to, you know, this kind of restaurant, where they serve your to comfort foods that you like, and and your friend’s like, come on. I love this place. Trust me. It’s really great. And so you do and you’re like, oh, I guess I could listen to a sci fi every once in a while or yeah. I I I guess I I I kind of like listening to this memoir because my trusted narrator friend who lives in in my earbuds took me took me there. Yeah. So I think that listeners are much more, I know there’s a word for this, willing to be go outside of their comfort zones when they know the narrator.
Jim Azevedo [00:15:30]:
Because they trust that narrator.
Karen White [00:15:32]:
And that’s why your narrator is a marketing choice.
Jim Azevedo [00:15:35]:
That’s an excellent point. I wanna back up a little bit, Karen, because, you know, when I was reading your bio, this this, you know, kind of jumped out at me before. But as I was reading it, it jumped out at me again. So you’ve been involved with audiobook since 1998. How did so what brought you into this and especially at that so that was, like, 10 years before, you know, the ebooks took off and, you know, ebook publishing, self publishing really took off.
Karen White [00:16:03]:
Yeah. So, their audiobooks have had a very, very small corner of the the reading public for a very long time since seventies, eighties.
Jim Azevedo [00:16:17]:
CDs and cassette tapes and 8 tracks and all that kind of stuff.
Karen White [00:16:20]:
Right. It was, you know, it’s cassettes and, there were 2 big companies, books on tape and recorded books that it was like, it was kind of like Netflix. Originally, remember how maybe some some of you may not remember, but when Netflix started, you would, have a list of things you wanted, and they would mail you in the actual snail mail, a CD or I don’t remember. It wasn’t VHS. It was always CD. And then you would watch it, and you would send it back. And that’s how the original audiobooks were. If it wasn’t in a library borrowed from the library, we’d send you this big package.
Karen White [00:17:02]:
It was, like, this big because a a full book was, like, 20 cassettes, you know, to listen to the whole thing. And you would listen to it, and you would send it back. And they were extremely expensive to produce both in a studio. You know, there’s a whole lot of people. There, you know, there was a director, a producer, an engineer. You know, it was it was it was expensive to produce on that side, but also expensive to produce the actual object and to send it back and forth. And Yeah. You know how Because it’s an actual object.
Karen White [00:17:36]:
The day, I, so many times, would be listening to an audiobook on cassette in my car, and then suddenly the cassette breaks. And you’re in the middle of this really great book, and you’re like, no. And so both library patrons and, when you would borrow it, there was always a guarantee that you could get a replacement cassette. So that’s expensive too. You know, those things don’t last forever. Anyway, so that’s what I basically, I was an actor. We had moved to LA from Boston. I had done some I I was a working actor in Boston.
Karen White [00:18:13]:
I taught theater. I, I did mostly, plays. I did commercials, everything. But when we moved to LA, you know, I did some of that, but then we decided to have kids. And it I just didn’t wanna deal with running like, literally driving hours to for an audition with a baby. Mhmm. You know, people did it, but I didn’t wanna do that. So a friend of mine said, hey.
Karen White [00:18:39]:
This girlfriend of mine up in Seattle records audiobooks. You should check that out. So I did. I just called everyone I could find in loss in the Los Angeles area, and I ended up working for this company called Dubb Audio, which only did and this is no people who listen now would be just be appalled. They only produced abridged audiobooks was when you just cut out 3 quarters of the book to make it shorter. And it they would only be, recorded by celebrities because celebrities couldn’t sit for that long. They didn’t have time for that, you know, to read a whole book. So, I worked for them first as, I worked for them as an editor, and then Books on Tape opened, a studio, in Los Angeles area.
Karen White [00:19:28]:
And the guy I was working for at Dove was, Dan Musselman, who he opened that studio for them, and he hired me to be his assistant. And so for the 1st couple years, I just did everything. I did casting. I did some editing, which I’m all I was terrible at really bad, and directing. And then I started narrating, when he realized that I was actually he saw me in a movie, and he realized I was actually an actress. So Okay. And then I was
Jim Azevedo [00:20:02]:
See, she unfreezes.
Karen White [00:20:04]:
Oh, am I back?
Jim Azevedo [00:20:06]:
You’re back.
Karen White [00:20:07]:
Move. Anyway, long story short, I’ve seen this industry change.
Jim Azevedo [00:20:13]:
I’ve Yeah.
Karen White [00:20:14]:
Really been here for a lot of the major changes, and that’s kinda why when I, decided to retire from narrating after 21 years, I couldn’t, like, just walk away and only write books.
Jim Azevedo [00:20:30]:
And Yeah.
Karen White [00:20:30]:
I realized I had knowledge that I wanted to share with other indie authors. So that’s why I started my, marketing, company.
Jim Azevedo [00:20:39]:
It’s so interesting. That’s why I love doing these conversations because I always learn something that I hadn’t that I didn’t know that I didn’t know about, especially with your background. It’s that’s that’s really cool. And you’ve got this breadth of knowledge from the early days of audiobooks.
Karen White [00:20:55]:
Yeah. Yeah. I remember. And so if the people want I I can see a lot of your comments, but I can’t type them type back to them. So I don’t know. Jim will let us Jim will guide us if we’re gonna be
Jim Azevedo [00:21:10]:
I’m gonna guide you guys. So I’m gonna start looking at some at some, at some comments here. One of them’s one of them one of the first is from our own. Lexi Green, who says, I love when we have guests on with audiobooks expertise since it’s really the medium I know the least about since it’s not a DVD specialty. Yeah. And you’re right, Lexi.
Karen White [00:21:29]:
Well, this this touches on, like, when one of my main so in addition to, I run promos very similar to, an ebook release promo. We do blasts. We, I have ALC management, which is advanced listening copy versus an ARC management. So those are very similar, and I think they would be familiar to to most people. But the my reviewers are schooled in reviewing audiobooks versus ebooks. They make it clear that they’re reviewing the audiobook, and they talk about the performance. But the other part of my company is, I I do consulting with authors on getting into audio in the first place because and this is where, Jim, you and I met years ago because I was going around the conferences and and doing talks on this because there are so many different decisions you have to make Yeah. When trying to get your books in audio from whether to work with a publisher or not, whether you even have the rights to your books, if you’re not an indie author, if you’re hybrid.
Karen White [00:22:43]:
But one of the things touching off of what Lexi said that I always recommend is if you are not a listener, you gotta find somebody in your close circle who is, whether it’s your sister-in-law or what one of your beta readers or, you know, anybody, any sort of trusted person, your a sibling I mean, your husband or your spouse, because somebody in your circle has to know the what listeners expect. Yeah. And you are both casting and making all these many decisions about, where to release, why to be exclusive or wide, all those sorts of things. So that’s one of the big recommendations I always have. And if and if you don’t, then if you really can’t find anybody, then you have to start listening. Go to the library, you know, listen in your listen in your genre, your subgenre, listen to the books, your comps that are in audio, so you can get to know that part of the world.
Jim Azevedo [00:23:52]:
Yeah. I was gonna ask you, what what are the trends right now with audiobooks? Like, what what’s really peaking right now? Then we’ll kinda get into the more of the production type stuff.
Karen White [00:24:05]:
Well, well So there’s different just like there are different styles of writing POV, whether there’s 3rd person POV and there’s close, you know, sort of close inside the people’s head even though you’re in 3rd person and a sort of more omniscient third person. And then there’s, there is second person, but very few people should read that. But then you have first a p 1st person POV, and you could have single, first person, or you could have dual or multiple first person POVs.
Jim Azevedo [00:24:40]:
Mhmm.
Karen White [00:24:40]:
So all of those get translated into audiobooks. When I was coming up, most books, for adults were written in 3rd person. So you you would generally have one person record the book, and the style was a little more distant. It was, like, I was literally directed to read this like I’m reading it to a person. And then the Harry Potter books came along, and this mush happened between You and adult fiction. And Jim, Jim I’m gonna think of his name. I’ve met him, like, three times. The guy who narrated the American versions of the Harry Potter Jim Dale, he performed those books.
Karen White [00:25:31]:
Like, he like, you would believe there were 25 people in that booth, not just 1. He was the first person to do character voices in a book that adults listen to. So that really changed the style of narrating even 3rd person. So you would have a narrative, you’d you would sort of choose as a narrator voice, you know, the voice that you’re using when you’re telling the story, but then you would act out all the character, the dialogue. Now we have evolved to the point where a lot of books are written in first person POV in in adults in adult fiction. And so you have at least 2, maybe 3 or 4 narrators working on one project. And the newest thing, is duet. So there’s dual, d u a l, narration, and that’s when each person records separately their own chapters.
Karen White [00:26:35]:
So, when it’s my the, say, the female narrator in in a, traditional male female romance, she only does her chapters or her sections, and then the male would do their sections. Now duet, you you will have dialogue inside a chapter. So one narrator is recording the narrative, but then the dialogue gets, recorded by 2 to 3 to 4, 5 people. So it could be duet or it could be multicast. That has become it’s more expensive, but it used to cost
Jim Azevedo [00:27:14]:
you as much. Mhmm. Really?
Karen White [00:27:15]:
You had to do it in real time. Now the technology allows, and the skills of engineers allow that to happen a a little less expensive. They do it wild. So the narrator still works by themselves and records, you know, the dialogue wild. It’s almost like a radio play. Personally, it’s not my favorite. But
Jim Azevedo [00:27:43]:
Okay. I’m gonna step in here for a second until Karen comes back. I want you guys to know that, I was reading a book. So Karen has a lot of experience with this. I wanna give you some idea about her experience. I was reading a book. I was listening to an audiobook written by Brene Brown. And if you’re not familiar with Brene Brown, Brene Brown is the researcher who did the the famous TED talk on the power of vulnerability that’s had, like, 23,000,000 views.
Jim Azevedo [00:28:15]:
And her book, the power of vulnerability, has sold over 2,000,000 copies. I got to the end of that book, and they said well, during at the very end of the book, it said, this book has been narrated by Karen White. So I thought, oh my god. I know her, and it was so exciting. So she’s been doing this for a very, very long time. And, hopefully, she comes back because I’ve had some questions for her. But I wanna try to get to some of the questions from the audience here. Let’s see.
Jim Azevedo [00:28:44]:
Where did it go? Joanna Blackburn asks, will there be a link from draft the digital to home cooked books in the future? And, Joanna, thank you for your question. I’m so happy that you asked. Let me find that for you and bring it up. It is www.home cooked books.com. Go to that website. You can learn all about, Karen’s business. I’m gonna bring her back here. She just popped back in.
Jim Azevedo [00:29:17]:
Go to home book home cooked books.com. You can learn all about what Karen’s doing out there with audiobook marketing, audiobook production. Welcome back, Karen.
Karen White [00:29:27]:
You know, I apologize. I am at my parents’ house because we had a health emergency. So but now I am right next to the, the computer to the Wi Fi router. So I’m No worries. I my dad may wander in, but,
Jim Azevedo [00:29:42]:
hopefully, this will be more stable. Bring him on camera so we can all meet him. What what is your recommendation for how authors should choose a narrator or narrators as the case may be?
Karen White [00:29:57]:
Well, going back to when I was saying listening to your comps, that’s the first place I recommend is is seeing who is narrating books in not just your genre, but in your subgenre. So the authors that you use as your comps when you’re marketing your books, go to them and, make a list of, the narrator or narrators that are, recording in, in that subgenre because you want someone it’s important to have, experience in that genre. 1, it’s a marketing decision because it’s more likely that, listeners will find you because they know the narrator. 2, you wanna make sure that the narrator has experience in what is expected, by listeners, in this genre or subgenre. My main recommendation is to not use the ACX, system to audition narrators, because you as you said at the beginning, I was on the committee, the SAG AFTRA steering committee for a long time. And many people don’t know this, but authors can work directly with the union. You can get your own contract with the union. And if you have the time and energy to be a project manager, that is the cheapest way to create professional human narrated books.
Karen White [00:31:36]:
By project manager, you do not not have to know anything about actually producing the audiobooks. But you what you would do is be the pay master and be the one who is sort of supervising the process. So I sort of coach, indie authors through this so that they know how to do it themselves. But the reason I started doing that is that I obviously believe strongly in that a human narrated book is is what listeners want, but it’s it’s also the best way to serve your book, when you’re turning it into audio. But I know it’s really expensive, and it’s hard to make that money back. So, the absolute cheapest way to do it and get a good get a good title, out of it is to do it yourself. I do have on my YouTube, and it’s linked in the FAQs of that Home Cooked Books site.
Jim Azevedo [00:32:35]:
Okay. I
Karen White [00:32:36]:
have a whole video on on this, on how to, how to find narrators and how to do this the most economical way possible. The other thing is to find is to work with a production company. If that if being a project manager is just not something you have the time for, or your assistant has the time for, you don’t have an assistant, then you working with an audiobook production company, many of almost all of whom, are were created by narrators. That’s a really good way to go.
Jim Azevedo [00:33:10]:
Do you have do you have links on your website for those 2 for those pathways?
Karen White [00:33:14]:
I do. Yes. Yeah. Or, you know, you can ask me for, recommendations. The other thing, and a lot of people don’t really know this, is that there are companies that are audiobook publishers. So they they’re not like the big five. They’re not a small print publisher. All they do is publish audiobooks.
Karen White [00:33:41]:
And because the big five are releasing, few are sell are not selling off their rights as much as they used to to these to these, audiobook publishers, they are looking for books to publish. And a big ones that that work a lot with indie authors are Tantor, Podium, Blackstone. Those are the ones that I would say well, Dreamscape, but now they’re owned by the same company as blacks as RBG Media owns a whole bunch of these companies. Tantor, now Dreamscape, they own Hybridge. They own, their brilliance in recorded books are in this category, but they don’t work with indie authors as much. But Tantor, Podium, and Blackstone, you can actually reach out to them. You go to their websites. You can say to them, look.
Karen White [00:34:33]:
This is you can show them your sales, you know, and say, these are all the reviews my books have, And they may be interested in publishing your book, and then it’s sort of like a traditional publisher relationship. They pay for the production, and you get royalties. So that’s a way to go that a lot of people just don’t even think of. You don’t necessarily have to have an agent for this.
Jim Azevedo [00:34:59]:
I’m just gonna ask you that. Yeah. You read my mind.
Karen White [00:35:01]:
If you do have an agent, you can ask your agent to do it to to reach out to them directly. But all 3 of those companies, at least last time I looked, have ways. It’s, Blackstone Audio is what you wanna look up. And then Podium Audio is a Canadian company, but they work a lot with, authors all over the place. And Tantor, tant0ortantor.com. Okay. They come to a lot of things like Nink and other big Yeah. Conferences as well.
Jim Azevedo [00:35:38]:
Okay. Let me bring up a question here from Bill Simone. Thanks for the question, Bill. He says, I now have an ebook with DDD, and it is 91 pages. I guess the main part of the question here. Is there a requirement, for an audiobook time length?
Karen White [00:35:54]:
That’s a good question. And that actually is a trend that the, Audiobook Publishers Association has saw changing, which is more people are interested in shorter audiobooks. However, people who are on Audible and who perch who have an Audible subscription where they’re going to use one of their, credits to buy your book, they want the longest possible for that credit. They want an 8 minimum 8, probably, 12 hour book.
Jim Azevedo [00:36:30]:
Mhmm. You know?
Karen White [00:36:31]:
So 91 pages, it depends on how many words it is. There’s a formula that you can use to determine how long your book will be because everything, in audiobook world from the cost to the price of your book is determined by how many hours and minutes it is when it’s finished. It’s what we call per finished hour. So, a narrator will quote you a rate per finished hour. Audible decides on your price per finished hour. If you’re working with Findaway or another, or Author’s Republic, they recommend a price per finished hour. So if you want to know about how much your book is gonna be per finished hour, you take the word length. So say, I don’t know how long your 91 page book would be because it depends on how many page the words you squish into a page.
Karen White [00:37:28]:
But what you wanna do is take the word length, say it’s 10,000 words and divide that by 9,000, and that will tell you about how long your book is will be. In terms of producing a book, most narrators will have a one finished hour minimum. So you will pay them their rate notice even if your book ends up being shorter than that. So it may not really be cost effective to record a book that is gonna be a lot less than an hour long when it’s finished.
Jim Azevedo [00:38:10]:
Gotcha.
Karen White [00:38:11]:
Okay. People would do with something like that is if you’re recording a longer project, add it in and then use that as a reader magnet.
Jim Azevedo [00:38:25]:
Oh, okay.
Karen White [00:38:26]:
That’s what I do. Like, more and more authors are recording their bonus material when they’re recording, the bulk of the book, whether that’s a a prequel novella or an bonus epilogue, and they don’t and they have those on you know, only available to subscribers, which and delivered through book funnel.
Jim Azevedo [00:38:47]:
K. Thank you for that answer. And thanks again for the question, Bill. Kinda pivot to the marketing stuff here. Question from Aziz. Aziz, thanks for your question. He says, how can I work with Karen White for my audiobooks marketing?
Karen White [00:39:01]:
Well, if you go
Jim Azevedo [00:39:01]:
to home cooked
Karen White [00:39:03]:
home cooked books dot com, there is a tab for authors. So it’s there’s a for authors tab and there’s an FAQ tabs. But I would go to the for authors tab and then, there’s a lot of very clear, descriptions of what we do and, also a contact form.
Jim Azevedo [00:39:24]:
Okay. How are audiobooks marketed differently than print books or ebooks?
Karen White [00:39:30]:
Well, as I mentioned before, when we are working with your advanced listener copies, my all of my reviewers have reviewed at least have have at least written 15 audiobook reviews that they have posted either on Goodreads or Audible or on social media before they are allowed to be on my team. Mhmm. And they know that they need to talk about the performance. They need to talk about the book, but they also need to talk about, the work that the narrators have done and why you why you might wanna listen to this book. Mhmm. In addition, we use the the recording of the book as an asset. So, one at least one of our promotional blasts, I’ll create a little video that has a short, enticing snippet, of the book that we pair with a graphic and put those out on social media so that it’s it’s clear, but it’s also it’s like a taste. We we call it an audio teaser, where they get to hear the performance of the audiobook right there online.
Karen White [00:40:45]:
The retailers also have you usually, well, not usually, always upload a a 5 under 5 minute retail sample so that if you go on Audible, you can you can see, you you can listeners will listen to the retail sample. Almost I don’t know a single listener that doesn’t do that before choosing to, borrow or or buy a book.
Jim Azevedo [00:41:11]:
Oh, absolutely. I listen to all the examples. Another quick question from Joanna who asked, is there audiobooks are there audiobooks for children?
Karen White [00:41:19]:
Oh, yeah. It those like children’s books, generally, it is really more the purview of, traditional publishing because, you know, you can’t you don’t want to, and you can’t market to children directly because they don’t have money. So, but there are a lot of resources, in terms of learning to read, and libraries where children do listen a lot to books often while reading along. Yeah. Even my children who are in their early twenties, they still had cassettes that they would listen to in their classrooms while reading a book. It’s considered like a supplement, especially for kids who are struggling to read. It’s a way to help them learn to read. But I I it’s not something I do a lot of work with because, again, you need to market to the people with the money, and that would be adults or librarians or teachers, you know Yeah.
Jim Azevedo [00:42:30]:
Who are also adults. Right. Okay. So how does when someone comes to your website they’re like, I need help with my production or I need help with marketing, how do they initiate a relationship with you and your company?
Karen White [00:42:44]:
So what I have is, a form I ask people to fill out to tell me about what it is they’re trying to do.
Jim Azevedo [00:42:52]:
Can I open your website back up?
Karen White [00:42:54]:
Okay. And that lets me know where they are in their journey. Like, sometimes people fill that out, and they have a produced audiobook, and they’ve already loaded it on Audible. And they wanna market it, and I’m like, oh, I wish you’d taught me 3 months ago.
Jim Azevedo [00:43:10]:
But Yeah.
Karen White [00:43:11]:
Me, it’s great to have to if you are already publishing and you want help marketing, it really helps me and you if you contact me before you put it up on Audible or where or to whatever distributor you’re using, preferably at least 6 weeks prior. Because then you’re gonna get more people interested in helping you market your book from my team.
Jim Azevedo [00:43:34]:
And I don’t wanna assume I wanna ask you, like, so if somebody has a book that’s, you know, published in print or as an ebook, but they haven’t produced an audiobook yet, they’re they can still come to you and you’ll Yeah. Yeah. So It’s work backwards from when you wanna release this.
Karen White [00:43:48]:
Right. A lot of people oh, I just saw Terry’s answer. I was told it was 1 hour is 10,000 words. It’s this is not this is not a science. It’s it’s a art when you’re figuring out the per finished hour. It’s 93100 is actually the one that most people use, but it it really depends on the book and the narrator. So it this is not gonna tell you exactly how long your book is, this this equation. Sorry.
Karen White [00:44:18]:
Had a little ADD moment there. No. No. No. No. No. So a lot of people I work with too, I do consulting. So Mhmm.
Karen White [00:44:28]:
You can actually sign up for an appointment to have a Zoom with me, and we can talk through, your options and, figure out if I can help you or, maybe I can help you find somebody else. You know, what will work best for you, whether it’s producing your own audiobooks or finding a publisher or producer, if you’re not yet in that place where you’ve got a book ready to go.
Jim Azevedo [00:44:56]:
Okay. Is there a minimum amount of time that you work with clients whether it’s a month or 6 months or 3
Karen White [00:45:03]:
months? Hour.
Jim Azevedo [00:45:04]:
Oh, really? Yeah. So you do some consultations as well? Okay.
Karen White [00:45:09]:
I mean, I’m an author, and Yeah. I know everything is expensive. And, really, I honestly, I started this company because I had all these reviewers that I loved so much that I had sort of nurtured since when I was only a narrator, and I didn’t wanna lose them. So I was like, I gotta find other books for them to review. So, and I also have a lot of author friends. And so when I started, I just reached out to people. I was and I just asked, hey. Would this be helpful to you? Yeah.
Karen White [00:45:37]:
And that is literally how I started this company 3 years ago. So, it’s always evolving. I if you know anyway, my personality, I really like to learn things and I like to share that knowledge. That is just who I am. So I try to make it so that I am not losing money and I when I
Jim Azevedo [00:46:00]:
help I’m good business. Yeah.
Karen White [00:46:03]:
So but I’m I’m not here to rip you off and take your money. Yeah. I don’t make promises. I will tell you if I can’t help you. That’s you know, I’m pretty direct.
Jim Azevedo [00:46:16]:
Well, if I was going to release an audiobook, I would wanna find somebody who has been in the audiobook market since before it really, like, became a
Karen White [00:46:24]:
a massive start of time.
Jim Azevedo [00:46:26]:
Right. Well yeah. Because your network is amazing, and you have and you’re not only network with, you know well, you’ve networked with reviewers, but you’re also networked with all these influencers as well. Like, that that’s just that’s really cool. And just going by your your expertise, your knowledge, and and your experience, it’s like yeah. It’s almost like a no brainer. So in a nutshell, everybody, go to go to home cookbooks.com, just to learn more about what Karen and her team are doing out there on behalf of your audiobooks. I knew this was gonna happen, Karen, because it happens every week, but especially this week.
Jim Azevedo [00:47:04]:
So I have to tell everybody before before we even started this conversation, I was like, oh my god. I got 3 pages of notes. I got some on paper. I got some on my phone. I got, you know, some on another screen here with all these questions, and then blink and the 45 minutes is over. It’s frustrating. We’re gonna have to get you back on, Karen. I swear.
Jim Azevedo [00:47:24]:
Because we’re at the we’re at the end of time. And now I’ve got to go through my obligatory YouTube stuff and just tell our audience out there, once again, thanks you guys for joining us week in week out. It means the world to us that you are joining these episodes every week. You can do us a favor and share this episode or other episodes that you’ve enjoyed because it helps us attract guests like Karen to share their knowledge and expertise and advice with you all. And if you bookmark D2Dlive.com, you can see who next week guest is and what the topic is going to be. And finally, if you are new to self publishing, even if you’ve been traditionally published and you’ve got over a dozen books or even over a 100 books to your credit, but you’re just kind of dipping your toe into the indie publishing waters, why not sign up for a free account at draft2digital simply by going to draft2digital.com? Karen, it’s been a joy chatting with you. It always has, Jim. It’s so fun talking to you.
Jim Azevedo [00:48:31]:
Like yeah. In Atlanta, we were like talking about all kinds of different things. It’s so fun.
Karen White [00:48:38]:
Well, can I also give a plug to you? I as I am an indie author, and I my books are on Draft2Digital, every single one. I find your resources so great. Aw. And it’s amazing. You know, I I went from having, say, like, some random little retailer like Tolino. I had 23¢ sales for months, and then it was $25 last month. So, you know, when you have these access to all these other retailers, I think they can snowball, and it’s really great to be able to just upload it in one place, run a sale in one place. I mean, that is the hardest thing when you’re when you’re wide is, like, when you need to change your back matter or run a sale, you have to go to all these different places.
Karen White [00:49:23]:
So kudos to you guys. You’re doing a great job.
Jim Azevedo [00:49:26]:
Thank you for that. Because I think some authors don’t realize that, you know, some of those smaller markets, you know, they might only sell a book or 2 here and there, but then in the aggregate, when that all that stuff kinda adds up. Yep. Yep. Well, thanks again, Karen, for being here. Let’s keep in touch. Let’s keep in touch. You know, we don’t have to do this, you know, see each other, like, once every year at a conference.
Jim Azevedo [00:49:47]:
Let’s keep in touch. Let’s see what you’re up to. Come back and see us again. If you’ve got anything cooking with home cooked books, that was cheesy. I didn’t mean to be cheesy like that.
Karen White [00:49:58]:
That was a very dad joke of you.
Jim Azevedo [00:50:00]:
Oh, gosh. It’s, it’s you know, if you try to push that stuff away, then it just seeps in osmosis. But thanks again, Karen, and thanks everybody else for joining us here again today this week. We’ll hopefully see you all again next week. I’m going to end with a quick 30 second commercial spot for D2D print. Karen, I’ll see you backstage if you have a moment. And everybody else, thanks again so very much. We’ll see you next week.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:50:25]:
I hope you’re great, but there’s just something about having your words in print, something you can hold in your hands, put on a shelf, sign for a reader. That’s why we created D2D Print, a print on demand service that was built for you. We have free beautiful templates to give your book a pro look, and we can even convert your ebook cover into a full wraparound cover for print. So many options for you and your books. And you can get started right now at draft2digital.com. That’s it for this week’s self publishing insiders with Draft2Digital. Be sure to subscribe to us wherever you listen to podcasts, and share the show with your will be author friends, and start, build, and grow your own self publishing career right now at draft2digital.com.