Indie Authors Networking | 14 July 2017
- Kim Hunter
- Jul 14, 2017
- 2 min read
Approximate Reading Time: 3 minutes
Once again, this learning and networking event was incredible! Gregg Davies spoke about the reasons why you (the authors in the group) should be getting an audio version of your book(s) into the market. To write this post, I put ‘audio book statistics’ into my good friend Google and the following are the first three articles which popped up:
There is a clear trend towards the purchasing of audio books worldwide but some factors need to be taken into consideration (always do your research!):
Listeners must feel that they are getting value for money. Audible works on a credit basis where after signing up, you purchase one credit a month. Currently I am paying $14.95 (R194.00) per credit on Audible.com and £7.99 (R134.70) per month for one credit on each site. I am a member of both sites for two reasons:
I LOVE audiobooks and it is my preferred medium
The UK and US offer different authors. Although I might find some authors on both sites, I may also only be able to find a particular author on only one of the sites.
Always remember that in terms of audio books, value for money equates to length of the story. I would be prepared to pay R150.00 for a 150 page romance novel, but I am not going to use one credit to buy a 3 hour audio book (unless there are very special circumstances). The majority of reading I have done indicates that listeners equate the value of their credit to between 8 – 12 hours or more of listening time.
The narrator must be a professional who is aware of the problems that can be encountered during a narration. Dry mouth sounds, a funny click, not saying the ‘t’ at the end of the word is horrifying when you have to listen to it over a 10 hour period!
Editing is also essential. Missing words in a sentence, repeated phrases and so on show an unprofessional production.
Don’t let these things put you off – I still listen to books with terrible narrators because I am so drawn into the story that some things can be ignored.
Bottom line, as always is do your research. Listen to sound clips in sound cloud or other sites to see what you like and don’t like, contact authors who have their books in audio format already to see how they went about it. But most of all, seriously consider this as another market to tap into – it IS growing and you need to tap into that.
Contact Gregg Davies to discuss your options and get more information:
or mail him directly: gregg@greggdavies.com
Pearl Seigel then told the authors about the Indie Indaba website she is developing for all those involved in the book industry – from authors to graphic artists, publishers to printers. An easy way to find service providers or clients to help you in your journey. You can contact Pearl through her facebook page:
Rate of exchange used in this article:
Dollar : Rand $1.00 : R12.92
English Pound : Rand £1.00 : R16.84
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