- One of our clients was about to release her audiobook
and wanted our advice, should she go with an aggregator
like Author's Republic,
use Findaway Voices to get distribution,
or go for the bigger royalty cut and go exclusive
with ACX and Audible?
If you're wondering this too,
stick around 'cause this video is for you.
(upbeat music)
Hey there, I'm Julie the book Broad,
author and founder of Book Launchers,
a self-publishing services company
that will help you write, publish
and sell a fantastic non-fiction book.
As part of our services, we also help clients
narrate and produce and distribute audiobooks.
Something I highly recommend most non-fiction authors do
for their books if they have the budget to do it.
I talked about why in this video right here,
but today, I simply want to address the giant question
of how to get your audiobook out there.
In North America, Audible is the big player,
and if you go exclusive with ACX which is Amazon's company,
you get a bigger cut of the pie, a much bigger cut.
With ACX, you can reach Audible, amazon.com
and Apple Books, and if you go exclusive,
you'll earn a 40% royalty rate on every book sold.
If you don't go exclusive, you're only earning 25%,
so on a first glance, it might seem like a no brainer
to go exclusive with ACX and make more money,
because with Findaway Voices, for example,
you'll receive 80% of whatever they receive
from their partners, so if you upload them to distribute
to Audible, you'll receive 80% of 25%.
Personally, as a side note, I would upload to ACX direct
and then use Findaway Voices for the rest if you don't mind
having two accounts for this.
Now, I know the numbers are getting ugly
and I could run a bunch of numbers to compare it,
but here are the things I really think you should consider
before making the decision to go exclusive or go wide.
Number one, if you go exclusive with ACX,
the contract is for seven years.
A lot of things are going to change in seven years,
just in 2019, in queue one, Findaway Voices launched a deal
with Apple Books, when you deliver your audiobook
to Apple Books through Findaway Voices,
you earn 45% of the list price
that you get to set for every sale.
Previously, going through ACX it was 25% royalties
on non-exclusive or 40% for exclusive,
so with Findaway Voices, you're getting a better rate
and you don't have to be exclusive.
BookBub, the biggest player in book ads,
announced their very own audiobook system called Chirp.
If the millions of BookBub buyers on their list
become audiobook listeners via that app
and you can promote to them through BookBub,
this is huge, and guess who Chirp's partner in this is
right now, Findaway Voices,
so exclusive means you're stuck
and missing out of those developments
and seven years is a long time,
and they're constantly innovating at Findaway Voices
to get new distribution agreements.
They also added Storytel to their list this year,
which is huge and growing largely
European subscription service.
It's based in markets that tend to be audiobook first
markets, and they currently have more than seven hundred
and 50 thousand paying subscribers across 15 countries
and that's growing rapidly.
Number two, with ACX, who has Audible and Apple Books,
you do not set your list price, they choose it for you,
so you have no control over that.
Number three, every time you make yourself exclusive
with Amazon, you're feeding that monster
that's been a blessing and a curse to authors.
Because of them, we can self-publish and get massive
distribution and reach a big audience,
but they have a lot of power over us self-publishing
authors, they can constantly squeeze us
for smaller royalties and dictate terms we don't like,
like setting the price of our books,
and if you keep giving them exclusivity and not supporting
the companies that are trying to open more doors for us
to reach other readers, well you're feeding that monster,
and you know what happens when monsters find out
they can eat more and more and more food
and nobody stops 'em, I don't know,
I don't know where to go with this analogy. (laughs)
They'll just keep eating. (laughs)
- (in a creepy voice) Mine, keep feeding me.
I'm going to take everything you have.
- Okay, that analogy sucks, but it has nothing to do
with your short term ROI, but everything to do
with your long term ROI, and long term opportunities
as an author, so I do recommend you carefully consider it.
Bottom line, companies like Author's Republic,
I'll talk about them another day soon,
and Findaway Voices are doing a great service
to us authors, and it's very smart to support them,
but you have to do your numbers and make your own choices.
If the majority of your book buyers are in North America,
then they likely use Audible, and ROI is the most important
thing, exclusive is the way to go.
If you want to reach your readers wherever they are,
and you want more and interesting and innovative ways
to market your book, consider expanded distribution
through a company like Findaway Voices,
and by the way, if you are already exclusive with Amazon,
or set on giving ACX, which is Amazon, that exclusivity,
you can be forgiven after a period of time.
They say roughly a year, although you can apply
for release as soon as six months, so long as you own
the rights to your audibook, which means you didn't
do some sort of a shared narration agreement with somebody
on their platform, then you can always write them
and ask to be released from that exclusivity
after you've been with them for at least a year.
Our contacts at ACX told us they typically do not hold
an author to that seven year exclusive
if you own all the rights.
What are you going to do with your audiobook?
Let's chat about it in the comments below,
and while you're here, make sure you subscribe
to the channel so you can catch the videos
I'm going to do on Author's Republic versus Findaway,
and why it's important to read fine print on both contracts,
there were some things that surprised us
and delayed an audiobook launch we worked on
by over a month, so I don't want that to happen to you.
Oh, and if you're wondering all the places your book
will be available for sale via Findaway,
the link is in the description.
To get the exact royalty shares, you need to create
an account, you can do that via the other link below.
Smash that thumbs up button, it makes me happy,
and subscribe to the channel and turn those notifications
on so you'll be notified when a video comes out,
and if you comment on the day a video is released,
you'll be entered to win some fantastic book launcher swag,
and we just might become YouTube besties.
Alright, I've got some fantastic videos for you to watch,
there's this one right here, ooh that one's really special,
you're going to like that one,
but ooh, this one's good too, so go ahead,
you choose, click it and I'll see you over there.
(upbeat music)
(grunts)