There has been big news in the audio book world last week, and in a somewhat surprising move I have leapt on board the opportunity and after a few hours (during which there may have been some swearing!) setting this thing up I’m now ready to share.
As you may remember I recently published the two book audio box set of Parallel Lies and Loving Vengeance. It is still being rolled out to all the retailers, but, Book Funnel (those fabulous people that have been delivering ebooks for authors for years) have announced they can now distribute audiobooks too. Yay! This means I can now sell them direct from my website – although probably for only a limited time – more on that in a moment.
So, my offer for you is this. From now until the 31st December you can buy my two-book box set for only £5.00 (which is much less than half price) via my website. In fact from this page HERE. Halfway down that page is a link which says:
Buy the audiobook directly from the author here
Click on that link either here or when redirected to the main page and you will be taken through the process. Help is at hand if you need it.
My offer is for two books, in one box set – over 17 hours of listening time – for only £5!!
How can readers listen to my audiobook?
I’m glad you asked! To listen to your audiobook, you will need to install the BookFunnel app on your iOS, Android, or Amazon Fire device. You can add the book to your app using a BookFunnel code or by logging into the app using the email address you provided when you claimed a copy of your book.
You will not have access to the MP3s and can’t listen to the book outside of the BookFunnel app. I want to make sure that I clearly state that readers must install the BookFunnel App in order to listen to the audiobook – which I’m doing right here! We all want to manage expectations early so that everyone is happy!
The BookFunnel App is supported on devices running at least Android 5.0, iOS 11, and Amazon Fire Tablet 5th Generation.
Just so you know, if you do go through to buy the audio book, firstly, thank you, and secondly you will get a pop up from Payhip which has a trailer for each of the books on it to download – it’s not necessary to do this unless you want to (I had to load up some files with them) but within a couple of minutes you will receive an email from Book Funnel and this will give you all the information and links you will need. I know it works because this was all new to me so I tested the process through from beginning to end and can happily confirm I now have my own book to listen to on my ipad at some point.
Now, about that timescale. Book Funnel have made this super addition free until the end of December. After then it will cost $10 a month, minimum. My audio book sales have been small in number to date so it is likely that I will not be able to afford to continue using this capability beyond the end of the year, hence the limited timescale message. I should add that if I don’t continue with the paid programme you will still get to keep my audio book in your app so no worries there about it disappearing!
Anyway please take full advantage now as I don’t know when I will be able to do this again.
Please bear with me as I will be sending out reminders as I want as many people as possible to buy the book this way while they have the opportunity. I hope one of them is you and that if you do get the book you enjoy all those hours of listening.
Over to you! If you’re an author with audio books have you taken the plunge with the new Book Funnel capability? And how do you find sales? Audio books are meant to be the growing market but honestly, so far I haven’t seen it. If you’re a listener of audio books are you going to download this new app? I think there will be many offers on audio books through it in due course so I can see it being worthwhile you doing so.
Cool on the new tool. I haven’t begun to do my own audiobooks just yet. I’ve listened to yours and they are awesome!
Thanks, I’m glad you liked them, and yes, Jeanne, there’s always something new to learn.
For a year or two, my publisher and Amazon teamed up to offer authors a chance to have their books recorded for audio. I did it for five of the six books I had at that point published with them. All I had to do was choose a voice actor and listen to their reading of the book. Oh, and if they made mistakes, note the place and send it all back. I enjoyed the process. And Amazon were giving audiobooks free with membership. I heard back from several readers and none of the feedback was great. They had pictured my heroine speaking one way and she didn’t sound like what they’d imagined. Voice and inflection do affect the character and someone said “That’s not her!” Which I thought was sweet but also a bit disheartening.
Yes, Cindy, that would be disheartening. I can see how that would be an issue with people who had read the book already because you know we all build up a picture of a character in our minds. I was told by someone that providing audiobooks meant finding a whole new audience so I guess if you do that they come at it with fresh ears and hopefully no preconceptions of how someone should sound.