A short YouTube video (hosted by Julie Broad of Book Launchers) arguing that nonfiction authors should publish audiobooks. Julie gives three reasons: (1) audio is the growth area for books — audiobooks are increasing in use, especially among podcast listeners and via smart devices; (2) an audiobook (and especially author-narrated audio) builds credibility and trust with audiences; (3) there is easier discoverability on Audible versus the much larger Amazon book catalog. She briefly notes production cost and time as drawbacks and teases a follow-up video on costs and recording tips.
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If you're a nonfiction author, or you're about to be, you may not be thinking audiobook, but you should be. Especially if your audience has a lot of podcast listeners in it. But there's even more reasons than that. Stick around. Let me explain. Hi, I'm Julie the book broad with Book launchers dot com. We are your professional self publishing team and we help you write, publish and sell a fantastic nonfiction book. And now we we also have an award winning sound editor and voice coach on the team who will work with you to create an audiobook, which is the topic we're talking about today. Today nonfiction authors. I highly recommend you put audiobook on your list of things to do. Check. Especially once your book is written. And I'm not just saying this because I listen to more books than I read now. I'm saying this because I'm not alone. There's some big benefits to you as an author for doing it. And it's not just about the fact that more and more people are listening to audiobooks. Which they are. I've got three reasons for you. Number one, the future of books is in audio. I'm not saying people will stop reading, but audio is where the future is going. Alexa and other devices are in millions of homes and climbing. We can ask our favorite ladies, Siri, Alexa, whoever your favorite lady is, to read us a book that adds to car travel, mobile phones, etc. We can listen pretty much everywhere we go. And we are Audiobook growth is strong where ebook and print sales are stable or even declining, audiobooks are growing. Audiobook sales are primarily around fiction, but that doesn't mean a nonfiction author should ignore it. Audiobook listeners are often also podcast listeners. No surprise there. But people who consumed both podcasts and audiobooks listened to twice. That's 12 times as many audiobooks in the past 12 months as non podcast consumers. So all you podcasters should be paying attention to that one. Avid readers are always listening. So just because somebody likes to read their books doesn't mean they're not also listening to books. Audiobook listeners read or listen to an average of 15. That's five. Five, five. They listen to an average of 15 books in the last year. Reason number two credibility and trust. For most of our clients at Book Launchers, the goal of writing a book is to grow your business and build your name as an expert. If that's you, here's a few cool thoughts for if you do the reading of your book yourself, you're the voice narrator. The benefit will be that your listener will build a level of trust with you and your voice that is so much stronger than if they just read your words. There's something powerful about your voice being in someone's head. Dave, you should get these dishes done. I really should get these dishes done. Dave, you should clean the bathroom and clean the bathroom. Julie, get out of my head. Also, the fact that you have an audiobook makes you seem even more credible and professional because there's so many fewer books that have that audio component. When someone checks out your book on Amazon and sees multiple formats, it makes you look like the real deal. This is important if you're a consultant, a salesperson, you're selling workshops, you're speaking, doing media, and so much more. And finally, reason number three it's easy, easier to stand out on audible.com I couldn't get actual up to date numbers on the size of the Audible library in comparison to the Amazon Library, but in 2013, the Audible library only had 100,000 titles and Amazon had millions. So even though both libraries have grown dramatically since 2013, you're still standing out in a sea of probably no more than 20% of the size of the current Amazon library. That's a much easier job for a nonfiction book. Don't believe me? Go to audible.com and do a search in your niche. Instead of finding hundreds or even thousands of books that you'd be competing with, you'll probably find a few dozen. Of course, there's an added expense, and that's one of the big drawbacks of audiobooks is the cost of production. And it does take a little bit more time to create your own audiobook. But for many nonfiction authors, I think it makes a lot of sense to make the investment in audio in a future video. I'll cover audiobook publishing costs and six tips for recording your own audiobook, which you can find right here. Make sure you subscribe to the channel and turn those notifications on so you can be one of the first people to comment on the video and get entered to win a prize. If you like this video, give it a thumbs up. Makes me happy. See you on the next video.
