10 Essential Tips Every Author Needs to Know Before Creating an Audiobook

Audiobooks are a huge market and if you are a growing indie author who wants to expand their reach, it’s a market you want to tackle.

I have even seen one author say that they felt, without an audiobook, they weren’t even a real author. I don’t agree with this AT ALL (you wrote a whole book, go you!) and don’t believe that an audiobook is a must-have for every author. But audio is a fantastic industry with a very loyal readership who are a new audience for you to grow and publishing your already existing book in audio format is a new income stream that helps you to diversify.

Based on my own experiences from listening to around 200-250 audiobooks every year for at least the last 10 years, from being an audiobook blogger since 2018, and from talking to many fellow audiobook fans, I have created a list of 10 points I believe every author needs to know before creating their first audiobook.

I’m in awe of authors! Writing a whole book and then going through the process of actually publishing it and sharing it with the world is a truly impressive task. And when I then see audiobooks, lovingly written and narrated, produced with so much time and effort, sitting on Audible with 0 ratings and reviews, it breaks my heart.

We audiobook fans truly appreciate when you go to the length of producing your book in audio format, but you need to understand what audiobooks mean to us and what we care about.

That is what will set your audiobook up for success!

Before we dive in, I want to point you toward my audiobook for beginners guide. I don’t believe it’s necessary for you to listen to audiobooks to create a good one, but it would be helpful if you understood all the basics about narration styles and platforms audiobook listeners use.

1. Listening to audiobooks is an intimate and personal experience. Having a voice in your ear giving you inspiring advice or captivating you with a fantastic story is more immersive than a movie, leading audiobook fans to always come back for more.

To create an audiobook that will move listeners to yell about it from the rooftops, you first need to be aware of how important audiobooks are to fans.

They make literature accessible for people with disabilities, ranging from those impacting sight to those impacting the ability to hold a book or e-reader.

They allow bookworms to keep books in their life even when they are too busy to sit down with a book.

Every bookworm – and especially you as an author – knows how impactful books are to us. Now imagine you can’t – for whatever reason – read books anymore. And then there are audiobooks, giving you back everything you desperately missed!

This is the basis for everything I want to tell you from now on. You need to fully understand the impact audiobooks have on people!

Picture busy parents of young children, running around all day – but while they are packing the dishwasher or commuting or driving back from bringing the kids to their things, they get to listen to YOUR book! And for this time, they can be just themselves, they can forget all about their never-ending To-do list, or think ahead to the many tasks still waiting for them because for now, they get to listen to YOUR words.

Many audiobook fans listen to an audiobook a week, some even to 2, 3, or more, preferring an audiobook over watching TV or reading other book formats. Audiobooks are a lifestyle! And they are so impactful, that many casual listeners quickly become fans. Why? My theory is that the combination of a story and the human touch through the narrator’s voice gives us something we crave.

Which brings us to…

2. The narrator makes or breaks your audiobook! They need to be skilled and experienced and their voice has to match your characters.

I cannot stress enough how important the narrator choice is and you will hear much more about this. But for now, here are three hands-on ways to go about finding these professionals:

#1 If you have an active fan community, ask them! While many people are exclusively audiobook, there are also a lot of bookworms who love every book format and will happily tell you which of their favorite narrators would fit your book character.

#2 Go to Audible (.com/search), navigate to your genre as specifically as possible, sort by Featured or Popular, and just look at the narrator names. Are there any that pop up regularly? If you go to one of their books, do people in the reviews and ratings regularly praise their performance?

#3 Check out your comps on Audible. Who narrates these books?

Start creating a list of names that you can then research more.

3. A popular narrator is also a promotional investment. They will bring their own platform and fanbase who will buy your audiobook because they narrated it (#NarratorMotivated)

You have already created your list of names. Now look these people up! Let’s find out what they are all about. After all, you want to entrust them with your words and they will be deeply connected to your audiobook and its success.

If you click on their name in Audible, you can see all the books they have narrated. Is it all over the place or can you see that their work has a profile? Do they have a website? Are they easy to contact to inquire about rates?

And, very importantly, do they have a social media following? That would be most excellent!

The budget for a popular audiobook narrator partly comes from your marketing budget.

4. Synchronized voices (AI narrators) are not a cheap and easy way to dip a foot in the audiobook market. Having Virtual Voice audiobooks on Audible can tarnish your brand in the eyes of many audiobook fans.

You might have skimmed steps 2 and 3, thinking that you don’t want to aim quite that high and hire a voice actor. But remember point 1!

I absolutely understand if you are hesitant to invest so much time and money into a new venture. But AI is very problematic!

Audiobooks are personal and meaningful for listeners and many are not willing to deal with synchronized voices. If listeners see you promoting AI narration, it can be considerably harder to find success with real audiobooks in the future.

5. Audiobooks are real reading but just as your print book reading crowd is different from your ebook reading fans, so are your audiobook listeners. Treat them as a distinct group and engage them with content tailored specifically to them!

You have bookworms who enjoy all book formats from print to ebook to audiobook. But you also have large numbers who only enjoy their literature in one format. And for successful marketing, you need to be able to reach them.

Your first step would be to ask your followers about their favorite narrators and/or which narrator they would cast for your book. Then you should keep them up-to-date on the progress of your first audiobook.

If you regularly ask your followers what they are reading, start asking them specifically which audiobook they are currently listening to!

6. Your audiobook needs its own ads and marketing, targeting audiobook listeners.

Once you have released your first audiobook, run ads specifically for people with an interest in audiobooks and/or join audiobook communities that allow promotion or giveaways, so you can reach this new audience beyond your ebook-reading followers.

You can also consider working with an audiobook promotion company who have audiobook review teams that can help spread the word.

7. People judge a book by its cover! Audiobook covers are square and require design adjustments to match the format.

Part of me didn’t want to include this because I hope that you roll your eyes at me right now. It should be a given that your book needs a good cover!

But I too often see outstandingly bad cover designs that don’t even match the square format.

The cover is the first thing many people see of your audiobook! If it looks like someone made it with Microsoft Paint, they will likely scroll on.

A professional, eye-catching cover, on the other hand, makes listeners more likely to click through and check out your blurb and sample.

8. The blurb and sample sell the book. Take special care of both, making sure audiobook stores show the full blurb for your book and that the sample includes snippets of all narrators who worked on your audiobook.

When I asked my followers what they wanted first-time audiobook authors to know, several mentioned the blurb and the sample. As with the cover, I believe it should be a given that you make sure you have the full blurb visible for your audiobook.

But this goes wrong too often! So, double-check, please.

Listeners also appreciate it greatly if every narrator can be heard in the sample. If you use dual narration with two voice actors, make sure listeners can sample both. Even if they are well-known voices, you also want to reach newer audiobook listeners!

9. Make a plan for your audiobook codes. Run giveaways for your fans and give them to trusted audiobook reviewers to get the most promotional value out of the codes.

Once your audiobook is published, you will likely receive free codes from Audible and possibly also from other stores, depending on which publishing route you take, wide or Audible-exclusive.

You can jump-start your audiobook by running a giveaway in an audiobook community. But please don’t request people to review! That’s a bad look. If you win something, you don’t want to be required to work.

Depending on how big your platform is, you can exclusively run giveaways for your fans, or you can get in touch with a review team. While I love and often recommend pages that give away free audiobook codes, I don’t believe it is always the best way to use your codes for an audiobook you put so much effort and money into.

10. The best book to turn into your first audiobook is your most popular title with the most ratings and reviews. Audiobook listeners don’t care when it was first published, but they want to see reviews of the story! Some of your fans might even have waited for the audio version.

We are coming full circle here. If you have an ebook that’s a hit and that made you consider going audio, that’s the one to do first. No, not your upcoming release! Your biggest, most popular title.

Your free audiobook codes will be a hot commodity and the reviews you have on GoodReads and Amazon will carry a lot of weight even when you don’t have any ratings on Audible yet.