Distribution Options
PRODUCTION HOUSES
Before we come to distribution, an indie author needs to decide if a production house is the right route for them.
Do you want to DIY it, or would you like a little assistance? Would you like to just hand it over and be done with? Production houses can handle everything for you. They can just make it happen. The ultimate handover of control is to sell your audio rights, and a production company might be interested.
Without selling your audio rights, a production house can handle casting, all the audio tech, distribution, and even promotion. Or you can be involved with the process: choosing your narrator, approving the final audio, choosing your distribution and participating in promotional campaigns. Of course there’s some cost involved, but the cost can be very, surprisingly modest, for very high value.
Main advantages:
Convenience.
Time. You can get back to writing and know that your books are being conveyed into audiobooks.
Trust. These are people who already know how it all works and know the best practices. Many of these companies are narrator-run. They know the biz.
Professionalism. Production houses work with proven, vetted narrators. You don’t have to screen all comers.
ROI. With a production co. that does promotion, you can have a much better and clearer expectation of recouping your investment. Promo can be time consuming. A production house is going to have a network of advertisers, bookstagrammers, reviewers and more to promo to for the genres they work with, so that you don’t have to find all those resources on your own.
Here is a not-comprehensive list of production houses:
Audiobook Empire - all genres
Pink Flamingo Productions and subsidiaries - Erotica, Horror, Thriller
Nubian Audio - POC
Leonardo Audio - various “man books”
Cat’s Meow Productions - Clean reads
One Night Stand Studios - Romance
Tavia Gilbert/Talkbox - Non-fiction
(there are more)
If you already have a narrator in mind (maybe me!), you can go to any of these houses and you’ve already saved the casting step. Most authors benefit from some amount of assistance from a production house - because it’s hard to be an expert at writing AND audiobook production and promotion. But if you’re a hard-core DIY’er, I dig that too ;)
I can recommend one I think best for you!
Whether you decide to go with a production house or work directly with a narrator, you will then have to decide how you wish to distribute:
DISTRIBUTORS AND AGGREGATORS
All of these have their particular advantages and disadvantages, and which is best for you basically depends on:
1. Whether or not you’re choosing PFH or RS.
2. Whether or not you wish to start with Audible exclusive.
3. Whether or not you want to “go wide”
A little more on this….
Per Finished Hour or PFH means you pay a narrator outright, and then own the ready-for-retail completed audio. Royalty Share or RS means the narrator gets paid for their investment through the sales of the audio over time.
PFH is the best choice for control, options, and also to maximize your return. All the royalties go to you! But RS is an option if the upfront cost is too much at once and you have sales numbers that make it a good risk for a narrator or even production house to co-invest with you.
Audible exclusive means your book goes on sale at the juggernaut- Audible, iTunes, and Amazon, ONLY. It’s user-friendly for DIY’ers, the royalty percentage is highest, and you can get free book codes to give to reviewers. The price of your book is set by its length. ACX is only accessible to residents of the US, UK, and Canada. Considering the problems Audible has had with mis-reporting sales, failure to pay royalties and backlash from consumers avoiding Amazon, this big obvious choice may not be best.
Wide. Your book goes on sale with Audible iTunes Amazon PLUS dozens of retailers, including libraries (LIBRARIES!), Chirp, Kobo, and more. Kobo is the favorite audiobook retailer in the Canadian market. You can control your own pricing, and benefit from Chirp sales. You can get Downpour and Kobo codes for reviewers. Your Audible royalty commission is reduced.
Your options for distributor/aggregators:
ACX - RS and PFH, Audible exclusive
Findaway; Dreamscape - Wide, PFH only
Spoken Realms - Wide, PFH and RS with some conditions, ideal choice for public domain books
If you are choosing PFH, you have all the options. If you are choosing RS, you have two - ACX, and Spoken Realms.
There are more granular considerations, for instance, you can go acx exclusive and later “pull” it and go wide (IF it was PFH and you own the audio). I personally like wide because I think libraries are important and would not want to cut off any potential market.
Do you have a following and a formula for release promotion with simultaneous audio? Or are you making your back catalog into audio?
Which is right for you?! This might be exactly the kind of conversation to have with a production house! If you are “middle of the road” as far as having time to invest in learning (and there is a lot to learn!) about production, and distributing, and marketing, the value you get for a modest price to work with production houses who know the business is substantial. It will save you a LOT of time.