[JeffreyKafer]

Perhaps of some interest: audiobookblast.com. Given the drought of places to market audiobooks, we're hoping this will be the bookbub of the audiobook world.

Not taking author submissions yet as we need to cultivate more listeners, but if you help spread the word, it will be more successful for you.

Feedback welcome.

 

[MyraScott]

What is the strategy here?  Will you be promoting free, discount or full-price audiobooks?  From which service(s)?

I love audiobooks- with a 45-min commute twice a day, audio is how I get most of my reading done.

 

[Gertie Kindle]

Depends on the price and the number of subscribers you get.  How do you plan on building your list? I'll be glad to tweet it once you're set up.

 

[555aaa]

Thanks for setting this up!

Looks similar to Audavoxx, and for them, as a potential advertiser, I don't have anything to go on as to why I should promote there - no samples, no covers, no descriptions, etc.  As a listener, also, if I didn't see some examples of books that are currently on discount, then I think I'd be a little leery of signing up. I think people also want to sign up by genre.  On Bookbub, there is a sliding banner of titles recently on discount so that gives the customer an idea of the quality of the offering.

I think I might also add a privacy page that clearly states who you are as well as how you safeguard personally identifiable information, how you implement age restrictions, etc.

 

[JeffreyKafer]

The strategy is 3-fold (and laid out on the site).

- Listen & Review. ACX gives you 25 codes for free downloads. Listeners can fill out a form which goes directly to the author so the author can gift them the book in exchange for an unbiased review.
- Whispersync deals. If your ebook is free (or cheap), we can advertise that the accompanying audiobook is only $1.99 (or whatever) more. Both for cheap!
- General promotion. Just want eyeballs? our list can do that.

Right now, the program is early. We launched, literally, today and are building the listener base organically. We're hitting Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter. Im also experimenting with some facebook ads.

Prices will start very low (a couple of bucks per title. Hello Fiverr) and go up as the listener base goes up and we analyze how much success people are having.

But right now, listenership is key. We absolutely won't move forward without subscribers.

 

[JeffreyKafer]

I don't have anything to go on as to why I should promote there - no samples, no covers, no descriptions, etc. As a listener, also, if I didn't see some examples of books that are currently on discount, then I think I'd be a little leery of signing up. I think people also want to sign up by genre. On Bookbub, there is a sliding banner of titles recently on discount so that gives the customer an idea of the quality of the offering.

Sign up by genre. That's interesting and has been requested. Curiously BookBub doesn't do this. As a matter of fact, I don't think many of the ebook services that do that. Am I wrong?

I think I might also add a privacy page that clearly states who you are as well as how you safeguard personally identifiable information, how you implement age restrictions, etc.

Bottom of the page, though not as detailed as you suggest.

 

[JeffreyKafer]

Terms and policies added with much more detail. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Sangria]

I think this is a great idea! And yes, definitely allow subscribers to specify which genres they're interested in. BookBub and most of the successful book-promo newsletters do this. The BookBub signup form takes you right to a page where you click boxes for the genres you want to hear about. There's a handy list of all the genres they offer on their Pricing page: https://www.bookbub.com/partners/pricing (not that you need to cover all these genres, but it gives you a place to start).

Good luck with your launch!

 

[Mark E. Cooper]

I was going to post about this, but no need now. One thing I will say, is that Jeff has been running a very successful audio reviewer page for quite a while now. I've had great responses from reviewers there. So to me, that means he'll have a good core of listeners to start things off. Building a list is obviously the hard part, but someone had to do it. I've been tearing my hair out over audio promo for over a year now.

I asked the bookbub guys on their Q and A about something like this, and they basically said "Not going to ever happen" So it's up to somebody else to do it. I'm sure it was because of pricing and affiliate fees at Audible. If there's a way it can be made to work, I think a narrator like Jeff will find it.

 

[Cheyanne]

We definitely need a service like this! I just signed up and told my Twitter followers about it as well. Good luck!

 

[Rick Gualtieri]

Awesome.  Proofing my 8th audiobook as I write this.  Good luck!

 

[Guest]

Wonderful idea and just tweeted. Fingers crossed that it takes off!

 

[JETaylor]

FB and tweeted.  I've got the last four books in production for audio and everything before that is already out there.

I'll be interested in seeing where this goes as well.

 

[555aaa]

A slight 'detour' here - if you(all) did a book through ACX on the pay for production deal, and you are on the exclusive ACX contract, you can revert to non-exclusive after one year. That will allow you to offer your book on other sites (like gumroad, cdbaby or bandcamp) at your own price point, or offer it free. But if you did royalty share, you can't.

http://www.acx.com/help/contracts-agreements/200474550#change-contract

Authors with a series might consider putting their first book in non-exclusive, which gives them (the rights holder) the ability to do giveaways, discounts, beyond the ACX codes, and sell on other sites (at the expense of lower ACX royalties - so that book becomes your ACX loss leader). I suspect several authors here have passed the one year mark already. Maybe Jeffry you could do the free book of the day, for example, exclusively for your subscribers. I would be happy to offer one of my books as free for a day. I think it might be cool also to do something like a weekly contest to win a free audio player pre-loaded with some of that weeks audiobooks.

Thanks again and darn it this is something I was thinking of doing!

 

[Gertie Kindle]

Tweeted and Facebooked.

 

[JeffreyKafer]

A slight 'detour' here - if you(all) did a book through ACX on the pay for production deal, and you are on the exclusive ACX contract, you can revert to non-exclusive after one year. That will allow you to offer your book on other sites (like gumroad, cdbaby or bandcamp) at your own price point, or offer it free. But if you did royalty share, you can't.

I intend to fully support CDBaby and any other retailers where you guys have books listed. As much as I enjoy working with the good folks at Audible, this ain't their show. I'm already in talks with Downpour.com to see what they can do to amp up their presence.

Honestly, this will never have the volume of subscribers of bookbub. There just aren't enough audiobook listeners out there as compared to ebook readers. As of today, we have 150 subscribers. Not too shabby for 24 hours after launch. Slow and steady wins the race.

 

[JeffreyKafer]

Aaaaand, subscribers can now choose categories of books they like.

 

[Mark E. Cooper]

A slight 'detour' here - if you(all) did a book through ACX on the pay for production deal, and you are on the exclusive ACX contract, you can revert to non-exclusive after one year. That will allow you to offer your book on other sites (like gumroad, cdbaby or bandcamp) at your own price point, or offer it free. But if you did royalty share, you can't.

http://www.acx.com/help/contracts-agreements/200474550#change-contract

Authors with a series might consider putting their first book in non-exclusive, which gives them (the rights holder) the ability to do giveaways, discounts, beyond the ACX codes, and sell on other sites (at the expense of lower ACX royalties - so that book becomes your ACX loss leader). I suspect several authors here have passed the one year mark already. Maybe Jeffry you could do the free book of the day, for example, exclusively for your subscribers. I would be happy to offer one of my books as free for a day. I think it might be cool also to do something like a weekly contest to win a free audio player pre-loaded with some of that weeks audiobooks.

Thanks again and darn it this is something I was thinking of doing!

I never considered that. What does that do to the royalty escalator? I assumed the 7 year exclusivity I signed was binding.

 

[555aaa]

I never considered that. What does that do to the royalty escalator? I assumed the 7 year exclusivity I signed was binding.

It says in clause 12 (a) on the contract that you switch to the non-exclusive rate as of the date you sent them notification, at least that's how I read it, although they get 60 days to make the changeover. The royalty escalator went away in March 2014, and also those were on a higher base rate overall I think. So that might be a bit of a hit on books earning on the older scale. If you signed after March 2014, then the exclusive rate was 40%, with no escalator term. Those will be eligible to convert over to non-exclusive 25% rate in the next few months.

 

[Mark E. Cooper]

It says in clause 12 (a) on the contract that you switch to the non-exclusive rate as of the date you sent them notification, at least that's how I read it, although they get 60 days to make the changeover. The royalty escalator went away in March 2014, and also those were on a higher base rate overall I think. So that might be a bit of a hit on books earning on the older scale. If you signed after March 2014, then the exclusive rate was 40%, with no escalator term. Those will be eligible to convert over to non-exclusive 25% rate in the next few months.

My first 8 are all in the old scheme. Most of them are at 54% currently and climbing. My last 4 will be on the 40% basic thing forever.