As I progress toward creating and selling audiobooks, I naturally have to figure out distribution. Writing the book is only part of the journey. The next challenge is getting the audiobook into listeners’ ears.

Listeners will go to their favorite site to purchase their next audiobook. Major audiobook retailers include Audible, Apple Books, Google Play Books, Kobo Audiobooks, Spotify Audiobooks, Audiobooks.com, Libro.fm, Everand, Chirp Books, and Downpour.

For an independent author, being available wherever listeners want to buy matters.

There are two primary publishing approaches. I can publish individually to every retailer or use an aggregator service. An aggregator allows me to upload my audiobook once and distribute it to multiple stores.

I already use the aggregator concept with eBooks through Draft2Digital.
HTML Link: https://www.draft2digital.com/

The audiobook aggregator I found is Authors Republic.
HTML Link: https://www.authorsrepublic.com/

The path I’m on right now is to create the audiobook using my Umbraaudio system and publish it through an aggregator.

Now let’s talk about the money.

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Listening length influences audiobook pricing. Longer audiobooks usually command higher prices. Unfortunately, higher prices do not mean higher royalties for authors.

For qualifying eBook sales on Amazon, authors can receive royalties as high as 70 percent. Aggregators typically take a percentage for their distribution services. Similar models exist across Apple Books, Google Play Books, and Kobo.

HTML Links:
Apple Books – https://books.apple.com/
Google Play Books – https://play.google.com/books
Rakuten Kobo – https://www.kobo.com/

Audiobooks are different. Retailers and aggregators both receive their percentage before they pay royalties to the author. The selling website’s cut is much larger. Using simplified numbers, if a $10 audiobook pays 50% royalties, the author receives $5. If an aggregator receives ten percent of net royalties, the author’s payment is reduced further.

Compared to eBooks, audiobooks can provide significantly smaller royalty percentages while costing substantially more to create. With audiobook production costing between $5,000 and $10,000. Higher costs and lower payouts are driving the price of audiobooks higher. Because the sellers can. A $10 audiobook (50%) vs a $10 eBook (30%). The seller gets $2 more (20%).

The audiobook marketplace largely uses retailer ecosystems. Audible wants listeners to use Audible. Apple wants listeners to use Apple Books. Spotify wants listeners to use Spotify. Consumers benefit from seamless experiences, but authors become dependent on those systems.

Many audiobook services employ digital rights management technologies or account-based licensing models that make portability difficult. Listeners rarely notice because everything simply works inside their preferred application.

This led me to investigate direct-selling options. Direct sales would allow authors to keep more revenue while building stronger relationships with their audience. Unfortunately, there is one major obstacle.

Listening.

Customers expect bookmarks, chapter navigation, sleep timers, playback speed controls, synchronization across devices, and seamless playback. It has to be simple. Download the audiobook and it simply appears in your playlist with all the audiobook features working.

For now, my path forward is becoming clearer:

– Create high-quality audiobooks using Umbraaudio.
– Distribute broadly through an audiobook aggregator.
– Learn how retailers handle metadata, pricing, and royalties.
– Continue researching direct sales options.
– Improve the publishing pipeline as I learn more.

I’ve learned that writing the book may actually be the easy part.

Visit my website for future updates:
HTML Link: https://authorbdmurphy.com/