Today’s article is an epic, 2,000-word conversation with Karen Commins, a professional audiobook narrator and Audible Approved Producer in Atlanta who has given voice to more than 50 audiobooks, including ROAD TO TARA: THE LIFE OF MARGARET MITCHELL by Anne Edwards. Karen has completed extensive specialized training in voiceover and audiobook narration technique, as well as in digital audio production. She has written numerous articles that educate authors about audiobook production and promotion for Digital Book World, InD’tale Magazine, and the Audiobook Creation Exchange blog. Learn more about Karen, listen to audio narration samples, and watch her helpful videos for authors on her website.

Karen loaded our conversation with plenty of links to more helpful information and resources, so be sure to click through on them so you don’t miss anything.

How to promote your audiobook

Pour a cup of coffee . . . make a cup of tea . . . and prepare to learn about how to promote your audiobook. The questions are mine; the answers are Karen Commins’s.

What makes promoting audiobooks different from promoting books in other formats?

In my view, the biggest obstacle to audiobook promotion is the fact that the majority of people still haven’t actually listened to one!

Persuading someone to try a new format can be a tough sell because a recent Pew Research Center study revealed:

• The typical American reads only four books of any format in the past year.
• While audiobook consumption has increased significantly in recent years, only 18 percent of American adults say they listened to an audiobook in the past 12 months.

Active readers and even authors commonly list one or more of these three reasons for not listening to books:

1. They fear the narrator might be boring, like a droning teacher in school.
2. They think they need a special player for listening.
3. Listening to books is perceived as being lazy or cheating.

I offer these points to counter those objections:

Regarding narrators: You can listen to the narrator sample before you commit to listening to the whole book. With several hundred thousand audiobooks available in all genres, you’re sure to find someone whom you want to tell you a story. 

About playback devices: Gone are the days of special players! Audiobooks now can be played on any smart phone, tablet, or computer. As a result, audiobooks have become mainstream entertainment enjoyed by millions of people.

Cheating concerns: Clinical psychologist Daniel Willingham concluded that your brain processes information the same way regardless whether you read or heard it. Rather than being a negative experience like cheating, hearing the oral version of the story adds enormous value to the text because:

• The listener enjoys the musicality and emotion in the language.
• One’s listening and concentration skills improve.
• A person absorbs the author’s words and message while doing something else – audiobooks are a multi-tasker’s best friend!
• Language skills and/or subject retention can be strengthened by listening while reading along with the print book.

What’s the first step you take when you start to promote an audiobook? 

I look up the book on Amazon to see if the audiobook edition is listed on the book’s page. I’ll explain why shortly.

If I find the audiobook is shown on an orphaned page (it’s not included with the other book’s formats), I send an email to KDP-support@amazon.com to request that the editions be combined. I include the links to the Amazon pages for both the audiobook and the Kindle and other editions.

The audiobook must be paired with the other editions on Amazon for three inter-related reasons.

First, some people buy audiobooks exclusively. If they are looking for the book, they will see the audio edition is available on the same page.

Second, the editions need to be connected before the audiobook can be a candidate for the Whispersync technology created by Audible and Amazon. Whispersync synchronizes between the Audible audiobook and the Kindle e-book so that you can effortlessly switch between them. You could read the e-book in your house and then listen to the audiobook in the car starting right where you left the story! I created this 3:04 video to demonstrate how Whispersync works.

Finally, once Whispersync is enabled on your audiobook, people can purchase the audiobook for a reduced price once they buy the Kindle e-book. If you run an e-book sale, and especially if BookBub lists your book as a Featured Deal, you could see a major uptick in related audiobook sales!

I listed additional preliminary marketing steps that I take in my Evernote Publicity Template. If you’re an Evernote user, you can save this note to your notebooks.

Which social networks are best for audiobook promotion, and why?

Authors are inundated with a blizzard of advice, information, and courses about the latest and greatest social media site. I’ve read about authors having great success with Pinterest. Others swear by Instagram. Still others will tell you that they sell tons of books through Facebook. Of course, you can’t discount Goodreads. Since you want to promote an audiobook, maybe you need to be on SoundCloud.

A new site pops up every week, with an “expert” teaching a class on it soon thereafter.

Frankly, if one site clearly offered a repeatable level of return on investment from audiobook marketing, we’d all be on it! As it is, I think an author should concentrate on having a presence on one or two sites and really learn how to use each to connect with the audience. Otherwise, it’s like throwing spaghetti on the wall to see what sticks. I’m reminded of the saying, “Scattered thinking leads to scattered results.”

Each site has its pros and cons, including external tools and training available for it. If I were consulting with an author, I’d ask these questions to help narrow the choices:

• Which site(s) do you enjoy using the most?
• Have you done any research to learn which site(s) your fans use and prefer?
• Are you planning to run ads?
• How much time will you make available for social media?
• Are you planning to schedule your posts?

By engaging in self-reflection with these and other questions, authors gravitate toward one or more platforms where they might experience the most success.

What does an audiobook author need in an audiobook marketing and promotion “toolkit?”

In addition to graphics and other tools used for promoting other editions, an author promoting her audiobook absolutely needs sound clips. You can share the retail sample from Audible on your web site and social media. If you don’t have the sample, you can use this free, handy utility from narrator Steven Jay Cohen to extract it.

In addition, you can create and share reusable audio clips from the audiobook using the Audible app. This tweet is an example of a clip I created this way.

You’re not limited to using the audio from the book only, though. You might pay your narrator to record a short story like this one that was a prequel in a series. You can offer the recording for free on your site and on social media, or as a bonus to people joining your mailing list.

Perhaps you write a blog post that would lend itself well to audio. One day, I read one by Barbara Silkstone in which her character Wendy Darlin (voiced by Nicole Coburn in the audiobooks) interviewed Sasha McCandless, who is the main character in the series of books I’ve narrated for Melissa Miller. Nicole and I recorded our character’s lines, and I produced an audio file of that blog installment that sounds like a radio show. The resulting recording was fun to create, thrilled our authors, and was a unique addition to the publicity arsenals for both authors and narrators.

What’s the most common mistake (or two) that you see audiobook authors making when promoting their audiobook?

Too many authors fall in the dual traps of A) thinking the narrator will help promote the audiobook, and B) doing little to no promotion of it themselves.

A narrator has a different promotional mindset and wants a different outcome than an author. We generally publicize new releases, reviews, and awards in order to advertise our work and attract the interest of other people who might hire us. It’s the author’s and/or publisher’s responsibility to increase sales.

Narrators usually are paid outright for performances. If we aren’t earning royalties, we have no incentive to promote a title. Even in cases where we agreed to a royalty share contract with the author or publisher, our promotional efforts would still pale compared to those of the author.

The author has far, far greater reach and influence than the narrator in selling audiobooks. The author is the story’s creator. The narrator interprets the author’s words and presents the author’s ideas. As a result, an author develops the larger fan base.

Fellow narrator Derrick McClain included a case study in this article that showed the tremendous disparity in Facebook likes between a star author (actually, four of them) and a star narrator.

As the author also requires more time to develop new content, narrators are more prolific than authors. Some narrators in are such demand that they record a new book every week or so. It would be impossible for us to promote all of our titles beyond minimal social media announcements.

What tactics work the best for audiobook promotion? 

I list and categorize a wide variety of audiobook promotion and marketing tactics in my Audiobook Marketing Cheat Sheet. We don’t have time to discuss each one individually, so I’ll point out 3 effective ways to move the sales needle.

BookBub Featured Deals

Authors have told me that getting a BookBub Featured Deal might be as easy as finding the end of a rainbow. However, you could get a pot o’ gold – well, lots of royalties, anyway – from your audiobook sales if your free e-book appears on BookBub!

If your e-book and audiobook are Whispersynced, you can expect to see an immediate ripple effect of sales of your audiobook edition. For instance, one Kindle free ad on BookBub I know of resulted in more than 300 audiobook units sold the same day. The royalties from the audiobook sales alone might easily exceed the cost of the BookBub listing.

Audiobook Boom

The popular AudiobookBoom.com site is the brainchild of fellow audiobook narrator Jeffrey Kafer. It’s kind of like BookBub in that it is a paid service where authors and publishers highlight certain titles. However, Audiobook Boom is only for audiobook promotion, and the weekly email newsletters are sent to subscribers who are audiobook listeners.

You pay $10 per title for a Listen & Review ad. If you used ACX to create your audiobook, ACX will send you 25 Audible promo codes with download instructions so you can give copies of your audiobook to eager listeners. With a Listen & Review ad, you’ll quickly receive a number of requests for your book from people who are willing to review it.

Podcasts

With the proliferation of smartphones, podcasts are enjoying increased visibility and popularity. They are already delivering stories to a listening audience, so they are a perfect platform for audiobook promotion.

You can buy ads on podcasts, but a much more interesting and potentially lucrative approach would be to do guest interviews. The ACX blog published this case study from author Glen Tate about his success in and tips for snaring guest spots. This guide contains additional excellent advice about finding and approaching suitable podcast hosts.

If an audiobook author only had enough time to focus on one thing to promote the audiobook, what do you think that one thing should be?

Promote the book. On every piece of communications – newsletters, website, social media, postcards, bookmarks – include the link or a QR code for the audio edition. The audiobook is only one edition of the book. No matter how someone searches for your book, they should see that an audiobook is available.

What’s the secret to audiobook promotion success?

The “secrets” to success for almost anything worth doing in life are creativity, consistency, persistence, and perseverance. Audiobook marketing and promotion tactics definitely utilize these attributes. Instead of viewing each activity as an isolated action, I encourage authors to plan an on-going sequence of promotional activities well past the release date.

Got a question? Get rewarded for it!

In closing, I appreciate the opportunity to talk about audiobook marketing with the BuildBookBuzz.com audience! I welcome your comments and questions below. In fact, I will give the first 10 people to comment below a free download of your choice of my audiobooks!

By the way, did you notice what I did in terms of audiobook promotion? I linked to my audiobooks on Audible and offered an unexpected giveaway. When you look for any chance to promote your audiobooks, inspired ideas will come to you!

Have a question about audiobook promotion for Karen? Please ask it in a comment. 

Note from Sandra: Interested in learning more about the business of audiobook production? I interviewed top audiobook narrator Julia Whelan (Gone Girl, The Wife Between Us); the audio recording for “The Beginner’s Guide to Audiobooks” is available from ASJA for $19.