How to Market an Audiobook

Audiobooks are the fastest-growing content medium for publishers, and the international spread of smartphones and faster Internet means they will only continue to grow.

This is an excerpt from How to Market a Book Third Edition, available now in ebook, print and audiobook formats.

You can license your audio rights, or use a site like ACX.com to find partners to work with on production, narration and distribution (currently only available to a small number of countries).

You can also narrate, produce and distribute your work yourself, but you will need to up-skill for this to be at a professional level. I narrated one of my non-fiction books, Business for Authors: How to be an Author Entrepreneur, but it was much harder work than I expected, so now I use professional narrators.

Once you have the audio, you can distribute it to Audible, Amazon and iTunes, as well as many other retail platforms. But then, of course, you need to market those audiobooks because unfortunately, the likelihood of audiobook listeners stumbling across your book on Audible is pretty small.

Here are some ideas:

Update your website with links to Audible and iTunes

Make sure that each of your website book pages include links to your audiobooks, and create a dedicated audiobook page that includes excerpts and links to buy on the various stores. Here's my own fiction page as an example: www.jfpenn.com/audio

Soundcloud.com has the option for including the cover as part of the Embed code, which makes the page look more attractive, and you can add your audiobook sample so people can try before they buy.

It's easy to include sidebar advertising on a blog, and promoting your own books is a great way to use that real estate.

Remember to mention that you have audiobooks whenever you do an interview or talk about your books. For example, I do a lot of podcast interviews these days, and I always say “My books are available in ebook, print and audiobook formats at the main online stores,” so people know they can get the books in audio format.

Use audiobook promo code giveaways

As with ebooks and print, reviews are critical to provide social proof and convince people to buy your audiobook. If you already have your book in other formats on Amazon, it will be linked to the other format reviews, but for Audible and iTunes, you need separate reviews.

ACX will provide 25 review codes after your audiobook is released and you can email them for more.

You can get promo codes on iTunes for all your products as well.

You can run giveaways for those codes on your email list or podcast, run a competition on social media, or provide them to your Street Team.

There are also sites that specifically review audiobooks, like audiobookboom.com or audavoxx.com. Search for those by genre and only pitch those who like books similar to yours. If you are an audiobook listener, you can always email me about getting a free review copy of one of my books.

Create shareable links to your audiobooks and schedule on social media

I use MeetEdgar.com to schedule my social media. I have several tweets with links to my audiobooks that go out automatically every few weeks. I use a composite image that I created on Canva.com with my audiobook covers.

You can also use these images in paid ads on Facebook and in your email newsletter. I sometimes have an audiobook section in my reader updates.

Promote your audiobooks on podcasts

If you have your own podcast, you can use it to promote your audiobooks. This sounds obvious, but I only started advertising my books on my own show in the last year! You can also pitch other podcasts for an interview spot – just make sure you target specific shows that focus on your niche.

Work with your narrator to create an excerpt with atmospheric (royalty-free) music if possible. You can use that on your own podcast or pitch related podcasts to include your trailer. There may be paid opportunities for promotion on some shows, but only pitch if your book is appropriate for their audience.

You can also release audiobooks for free with Scribl.com, formerly Podiobooks, which has subscription feeds like a podcast but is for full-length audiobooks. As with anything free, it works best when you have a series of other books available to buy.

If your fiction books are short, create audiobook boxsets

I've found that fiction audiobook boxsets are much easier to advertise and sell than individual novels, especially if the audiobooks are under eight hours on Audible.

My London crime thriller trilogy boxset sells many times more copies than the individual books. This is because the majority of listeners on Audible have a subscription and they want value for that monthly payment. The price of books on Audible is determined by a number of factors, one being length, so a shorter novel is not as good value as a much longer one. I haven't found this bias with non-fiction audio.

Use spike marketing like BookBub to promote the ebook

Your audiobook is connected to the ebook on Amazon, and if someone owns the ebook, they can buy the Audible version for a cheaper deal. So audiobook listeners wait for BookBub deals, get the ebook for free or cheap and then buy the lower-priced audio.

It's a clever listener hack and one you can take advantage of. Schedule email list promotions like BookBub or BargainBooksy and you will likely also see a spike in audiobook sales.

Bake in marketing by using a narrator with a following

This is really only an option for authors with the budget for higher narrator investment, or authors who do audiobook rights deals. There are listeners who love specific narrator voices and will follow that narrator across projects, so if you use them as a voice talent, you may get crossover sales in the same genre.

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These are some initial ideas for audiobook-specific marketing, but it's still a new arena. As the market expands, it's likely that more marketing options will arise as they did with ebooks over time.

The next few years will be an exciting time for audiobooks!