My author friend Sarah Whelan was able to quickly make her audiobook for Humbug and is now selling copies already.
I *highly* recommend you all consider creating ACX audiobook versions of each of your books. It is wholly free up front with royalty share. That also encourages your narrators to help market the book, since they only get paid when the book sells.
I fell very behind on reviewing my narrators’ works during the pandemic. It became an area of stress for me. I had four books waiting on me to review. I finally forced myself to listen to two of them – book 1 in my Rumble Strip / Blackstone Valley Mystery series and book 2 in my Oxendine / Lumbee Indians 1810s series.
To my relief, both were done beautifully and I was able to approve them without asking for updates. I wrote the narrators apologizing profusely for my long delay. With my approval, the audiobooks popped live in maybe 3 days max. It was incredibly quick.
My message there is do your best with ACX. You can run into hurdles. I have a slew of narrators who ‘went missing’ during the pandemic and didn’t finish their projects. I then felt stressed about the entire ACX system and neglected items I was responsible for. Just do your best. Be patient with people. It is well worth keeping at it and creating that audiobook which reaches an entirely new market for you.
Ask with any questions!
I have a how-to book on managing the narration process, if you would find that helpful!
