Do You Need To Produce Audiobooks As An Indie Author?

One of my daily ritual after lunch is to listen to any audio content in YouTube with my eyes closed for approximately one hour. As an author, one of the audio contents I listen to are audiobooks. This enables me to partially sleep and listen to books at the same time.

As a time starved writer, the only entertainment I get to do these days is to listen to audio content while doing my writing. Just like me, I realized the true advantage of listening content over reading content.

Listening content enables a person to do other things besides listening. This would explain the ever growing popularity of audiobooks. While printed books have held their ground and ebooks have still failed on their promise as the replacement for printed books, audiobooks have risen exponentially.

This does not mean that audiobooks are the new kings of book publishing. According to figures from LinkedIn, as of 2018, they merely accounted for 6% of all book sales globally while ebook accounted for 17%. Printed books accounted for 77% of the market.

I’m pretty sure that the market share of audiobooks have still grown exponentially, but sales of ebooks and printed books have also grown because many people these days have more time to listen and to read books.

If you have not been aware of the market share between audiobooks, ebooks and printed books, you might have made the assumption that audiobooks would soon topple ebooks in terms of market share.

This is because almost every author online and also those involved in the book publishing Industry seems to be recommending it. And their thoughts are valid. Audiobooks are another book format that book readers/listeners demand authors to create.

Arguably, if you are involved in the digital book publishing industry, you would need a good knowledge of the American book publishing market. Afterall, America is the largest digital book market in the world.

American authors are some of the most well known authors in the world and American readers are the most active consumers of digital content in the world. It goes to say, America does and the rest of the world follows.

And right now, more and more American authors even the newbies are producing audiobooks. The question now is this: “Should I publish audiobooks as well or I risk getting left behind by other authors?”

There is no denying that not making your books available in audiobook format has disadvantages for an author, but are authors really missing a lot?

The Audiobook Market:

As what has been said before, more and more people are finding audiobooks preferable to reading. More and more people are buying audiobooks although the market share is still much lower than ebooks or printed books.

When you don’t have audiobooks, you are alienating book readers who have reading difficulties and even disabilities. I found no online sources that can give an estimate of how big is the market for people with reading difficulties or disabilities.

One thing I notice though, is that sometimes, I would see YouTube comments from people with reading difficulties showing their appreciation for the people who uploaded the audiobook on YouTube.

Discoverability:

Each book format that you produce for your book increases your discoverability. You can promote or even publish your books to audio and/or video content platforms like podcasting platforms, YouTube and so on.

Also, if you are a new author, you have to face the reality that other new authors will beat you in terms of book reader preference. There are book buyers who won’t consider buying from a new author unless they have an audiobook version of their book.

If audiobooks have the distinct advantage over ebooks and audiobooks in enabling book readers to multitask, that is, listening by doing other things, why aren’t they outselling ebooks and printed books?

Cost:

It’s no big secret. Producing audiobooks are way more expensive than ebooks. Expect to spend thousands producing audiobooks if you want them to be professionally done. As a consequence of this, the retail prices of audiobooks are much more expensive.

In an age where many people want digital products to be cheap and even free, the prices of digital products matter a lot to consumers. One dollar for example might be considered cheap for a candy, but you might be surprised that many readers consider even one dollar ebooks expensive!

If readers are already complaining over one dollar ebooks then how about audiobooks which cost several times more? If you are an author who have developed a following with your cheap or one dollar ebooks, consider how your loyal readers would react to your audiobook prices.

Not True Multitasking:

I find that when I’m writing, I can’t listen to audiobooks. My brain is torn between thinking of what to write and understanding the audiobook I’m listening to. What I listen instead when I write is music. Music enables me to concentrate more on my writing.

The same can be said for other activities such a driving, working on a woodworking project or other things that require a lot of concentration. One cannot enjoy listening to a story while concentrating on something else. In this case, music clearly defeats audiobook.

Competition From Other Audio Products:

I listen to music all day long while I only spend approximately an hour listening to an audiobook. And if I have to listen to audiobooks, I tend to listen to short stories only. In this case audiobooks have a lot of competition from other forms of audio media.

I for example almost exclusively entertain myself by watching YouTube digital content. And YouTube have plenty of other digital audio stories that I prefer over audiobook. Podcasts and radio dramas are some of audiobook’s competition for my attention.

One of the things running in the minds of people who heavily consume digital media but have limited funds is this: “Which digital content service should I subscribe to?” Personally, if you ask me, my answer would be one of the digital streaming service like Netflix.

Why listen to audio when you can have video for almost the same subscription price? Why listen to audio when you can binge on movies and music concerts instead? Why listen to audio when you can have your choice of video content on YouTube and other platforms?

Not Interactive:

One of the best advantages of ebooks over audiobooks and even printed books is interactivity. With ebooks and printed books, a reader can proceed to the story at their own pace.

A reader might read fast or slow and skip entire paragraphs or chapters all together. A reader might want to immerse in their minds the words of a certain paragraph by reading it over and over again. In short, the reader has total control of their experience while reading a book.

Not Narrator Dependent:

I don’t buy audiobooks. YouTube is all the audio and video entertainment I need. Besides, the supply of audio stories in YouTube is growing more than ever, and audiobooks are just one of them.

One thing I found out about audiobooks is that the narration can make or break them. My advice is this, don’t skip on audiobook narration quality. Find a good professional narrator if you have to.

Even though an audiobook is from a very famous and bestselling author, I usually stop listening to an audiobook when I don’t like the voice of the narrator. I usually prefer to listen to female narrators more than male narrators.

Another thing that irritates not only me but also other audiobook listeners, is the background music that audiobooks have. I have a preference for audiobooks with no background music. Based on the comments I see online, other audiobook listeners also prefer having no background music on their audiobooks.

As you can see, audiobooks can be a hit or miss thing. Compared to ebooks and printed books where there is a uniform consumption pattern, that is, a purely mental reading of text, audiobooks depend a lot on the listening preference of a listener.

Enables The Reader To Listen To Music Or Other Sounds:

I use two electronic devices when I work, my iPad and my laptop. I consume audio and video content on my iPad while I mostly read on my laptop. I also get to listen to the world around me. The sound of the television, the conversations of my family the sounds outside our house, and so on.

While audiobooks allow you to immerse yourself into a story, they detract and even insulate you from the real sounds of life. There are many instances when listening to the world around you is very important.

The so-called advantage of audiobooks enabling a listener to multitask is not its alone, ebooks and printed books also allow a reader to multitask. A reader can read a story and enjoy their favorite music at the same time. Nothing is more relaxing than listening to your favorite music while reading your favorite books.

I have also instances when I missed critical audio information because I was listening to an audio exclusively. I missed telephone calls and people knocking on my door because I was listening to an audio like an audiobook exclusively.

As I have told you, there are plenty of audiobooks available in YouTube. I might be wrong, but I think most of these audiobooks have been illegally uploaded. Do not make the mistake that only audiobooks are pirated. Ebooks and even printed books are being pirated.

But we have to give special emphasis to illegally uploaded audiobooks on YouTube because of the attractiveness of them to the illegal uploader. YouTube is the second most visited site online, ranking only second to Google.

As such, more and more people are thinking they can make money by illegally uploading audiobooks in YouTube. If you are an author who has audiobooks, you might want to consider checking YouTube regularly to see if anyone had illegally uploaded a copy of your audiobook.

Perhaps this is one thing audiobook publishers need to be wary of. Text to Speech is becoming more and more sophisticated. They are even available on Google and Apple devices. A ebook reader might just use a text to speech software instead of buying an audiobook.

As we have discussed, audiobook don’t appeal to every book lover. Although ebooks and printed books might seem less sophisticated products, they nevertheless have their own advantages over audiobooks.

Of course it’s best if your book is available on all book formats such as audiobook, ebook and printed book. But if you are just a new author who is starting out, it might be best to build your backlist of ebooks first.

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