Far too often, self-published authors neglect a potentially substantial source of income: selling audio books. Housework, daily commutes and workouts are all times when book lovers are in need of entertainment, but need their hands and eyes free to accomplish other tasks. With the proliferation of smartphones and portable listening devices, it’s become easier than ever for authors to market and sell audio books, an opportunity which is sorely under-utilized by many of today’s independent authors. In many cases, these authors choose not to explore audio book sales opportunities because they’re not sure how to create, market or distribute the files.

Selling Audio Books: Getting Started

One of the most common misconceptions related to audio book sales for the independent author is that product creation requires a substantial investment in equipment. While you certainly can make use of professional quality recording equipment and top-of-the-line editing tools, you can also generate great content without investing in a professional grade recording studio. Experiment with a few open source recording and audio editing programs to find one you like best, and you may be able to get started with almost no up-front investment.

Because your readers will be consuming audio books over many separate listening sessions, and may be using the audio recording as an ebook companion, it’s important to keep user experience at the forefront during creation. Make it easier for your customers to find their place by providing a hyperlinked Table of Contents in each ebook, and breaking into chapters for audio book sales.

Audio Book Sales and Distribution

There are a few audio book aggregate services which can help you to distribute your audio book, but most have built-in exclusivity agreements which restrict your audio book sales to only users of those services. These services also make it more difficult for you to sell audio books and ebooks as companion products or in a bundle package, because ebooks are not supported products.

For the vast majority of independent, self-published authors, the best and most effective solution is building a personal web store. A comprehensive ecommerce platform like PayLoadz.com streamlines not only content hosting and automated content delivery, but also payment processing and affiliate marketing. A centralized marketplace allows you to turn social media profiles, blogs and other networking pages into sales portals with the addition of a simple HTML code.

Don’t miss out on a potentially lucrative earning opportunity. Consider the myriad benefits of selling audio books as companions to your self-published ebooks today, and start increasing your customer base.

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