10 Ways to Promote Your Audiobook
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Audiobooks have continued to grow in popularity year-over-year with seemingly no sign of slowing. As a result, over the last few years, the number of audiobooks produced in the United States increased from 44,000 to 74,000 per year (roughly a 40% increase from 2018). This is great news for authors, but more audiobooks also means more competition. So, how do you make the most of this growing trend and market your audiobook within a sea of other titles?
From the basic to the advanced, we’ve put together a list of 10 useful and impactful ways to promote your audiobook:
1) Add an “Audio” Page to Your Website
Your website is one of the top destinations for readers to learn more about your work. By creating an “Audio” page dedicated to your audiobook — or your many audiobooks, if you’ve published more than one — you’ll make it as easy as possible for readers to find your title. Be sure to link to as many “where to buy” platforms as you can, so people can easily click through to their preferred retail destination. Also, ensure the page’s URL path is easy to remember (i.e., yourauthorname.com/audio) for when you have to share it during TV, radio, and podcast interviews.
2) Free Audiobook Sample
Without a doubt, one of the most important tools you have to promote your audiobook is the free sample. It’s an easy way to pique the interest of potential listeners with a specifically chosen segment that highlights your audiobook experience. Your retail page on Audible (and other audiobook platforms) is the primary place to showcase your free sample, but it can be just as beneficial to use it on your website or blog and on your social media.
3) Boost Your Social Media with Audiograms
Audiobooks are “moving media” that you can use to promote your book digitally through audio and video — including on social media. An audiogram is an engaging and dynamic way to present a clip from your audiobook set to minimal video accompaniment (like a moving waveform with your book cover).
It’s a great way to promote your content across social media or even embedded on your website. Audiograms will hold someone’s attention far longer than simple static images.
4) Enhance Your Pitch Kit
Another “moving media” advantage is the enhancement they bring to media pitch kits. If you’re courting TV, radio, or podcast producers, including a link to an exciting audiobook clip can give the booking agent a fuller sense of your voice (if you’re narrating it), your book’s subject matter, and why you’d be a good fit for their program.
5) Promote Your Audiobook on Podcasts
The perfect setting to discuss the audio version of your book is on an audio-based platform like a radio show or the more contemporary podcast. Podcast audiences clearly enjoy audio as a form of entertainment and will be more likely to have an interest in audiobooks. It’s also a great opportunity to showcase a sample to show what listeners can expect.Start with a little research and form a list of podcasts either associated with your genre or within a target audience that matches yours. Be sure to listen to the podcasts you’d like to appear on before you make your pitch to the producer or host, so you get a more thorough understanding of the experience if you’re invited on the show.
6) Use Paid Advertising
While paid advertising isn’t always necessary, it can provide a welcome boost to supplement your promotional efforts.
Facebook can be a useful platform for advertising your audiobook — not just because of its large user base, but because it has extensive advertising tools that allow you to target your exact prototypical listener. Its detailed criteria will let you to seek out specific demographics, geographics, and preferences (such as Audible, fiction books, romance, etc.).
While Audible doesn’t have advertisements on the platform, if you have the audio version of your book linked with your print and eBook on Amazon, you can use Amazon Advertising to send traffic to your audiobook in an indirect way.
7) Collaborate with Your Narrator
Your narrator is one of the most important aspects of your audiobook and naturally they too can have an interest in its success. If you’ve decided to work with professional voice talent and you have the ability to involve your narrator in the promotion of your audiobook, it can easily elevate the experience of a launch event or a live reading.It’s also another way to give listeners a peek into the experience of your audiobook — what it might sound like, and how the narrator imbues their personality into the performance.
8) Get Your Audiobook Reviewed
You can generate excitement for your audiobook by getting people talking about it. One way to do this is to submit your audiobook to a service like AudioFile Magazine. With a thriving readership of audiobook lovers, the magazine is celebrating 30 years of publication.
