A short YouTube video (Oct 2022) by Julie Broad (Book Launchers) explaining how independent authors can get audiobooks onto Spotify following Spotify's acquisition of Findaway Voices. The video highlights using Findaway Voices as the fastest route for self-published authors, steps for ACX exclusivity release, and the author's early experience with downloads and expectations about sales.
Chapters
Big News dropped in September 2022 with Spotify offering 300,000 audiobook titles on their app. So now as an author, you might be wondering, how do you get your audiobook on Spotify? If you want to be one of the early titles available for sale on Spotify, then this video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the Book Broad, founder of a fabulous self publishing services company called Book Launchers. At Book Launchers, we help authors narrate and edit, produce and distribute their audiobook and then we help them market the book along with the other formats. So given that's what we do, imagine our excitement when the news that Spotify bought Findaway Voices dropped a while back. By the way, they paid a cool 119 million for it. So you know they are serious about this. I saw an article in Variety that quoted the CEO of Spotify as saying, we believe that audiobooks in their many different forms will be a massive opportunity. And with one major player dominating the space, of course referring to Audible, we believe we will expand the market and create value for users and creators alike. Yippee. And for me, who really doesn't love putting all my book eggs in the Amazon basket, because all the control in the hands of one party is almost never so good for anyone in the long run. Except for that one party. So here's my virtual champagne glass. Cheers to Spotify. Now how do you get your book on Spotify? Well, right on the Spotify website at the bottom of their FAQs, you'll find this little tidbit. It says if your audiobook rights belong to a publisher, reach out to them directly to ask if they're distributing on Spotify. If you are an independent or self published author, the fastest and easiest way to make your audiobook available for sale on Spotify is to use Findaway Voices. Now head on over to Findaway Voices and the site has had a little makeover. Oh it looks so good. And they've made it super easy and crazy obvious how you, my other friend, can get your book on Spotify. Check this out. If you've got an audiobook and you've already published it via Findaway Voices, you're good. I checked my book Self Publish and Succeed and it's on there and it shows in the portal and all I had done was upload to Findaway Voices a while ago. Now if you are currently exclusive with acx, don't worry, you can get out of that exclusivity. Unless you're in a rev share deal with a narrator and Even then, you potentially can get out by buying the narrator out. But if you uploaded your book a little while ago and went exclusive with acx, it's not too late right there on the Findaway Voices website. In fact, they've got a letter that you can use to send into ACX to request release from that exclusivity. And then all you have to do is upload your project to Findaway Voices and hit Publish now, as you see my account in Findaway Voices, you'll notice I opt out of Audible Distribution with Findaway to to maximize the revenue I make with Audible. I don't need to pay Findaway a cut for selling my book on acx, which for now is where the majority of my sales are coming from. But here's hoping Spotify users take to the audiobooks like crazy and all of us start enjoying a whole lot more sales from this new platform. So far, no sales, but as I record this, the news just dropped two days ago, so I'll give it some time. I did see in Findaway that I've had 12 downloads through libraries in the last 30 days though, so that's cool. That makes me happy. Now I'm curious, are you as excited as I am about Spotify getting into audiobooks? Let's chat about it in the comments below. And when you comment the day a video is released, you get enter to win copies of my book, self publish and succeed and some sweet noboringbooks swag like this T shirt. Now, if you're new around here, you maybe haven't seen my videos about Findaway Voices, so this one is a good one to watch right here. And if you're already a mad fan of Find a Way like me, well then you can hit up this video which is the latest and greatest from the channel. Both are certain to be fun, so go ahead, click on over. I'm waiting for you.
