How To Make Money Publishing Audiobooks On Audible (3 Ways)
Summary
TLDRIn this informative video, Dane discusses strategies for successful audiobook publishing on Audible and ACX. He emphasizes the importance of creating audiobooks of five hours or more to stand out in a saturated market, ensuring the content is suitable for audio format, and conducting keyword research with profitability criteria. Dane also introduces a bonus tip: creating series and bundling books to maximize revenue and appeal to listeners, offering a comprehensive guide for authors looking to monetize their work in the audiobook industry.
Takeaways
- 🎧 Making audiobooks with a duration of five hours or more can help you stand out in the market, as three-hour audiobooks have become saturated.
- 📚 The length of an audiobook should be determined by the content's suitability for the format; some books, like cookbooks, do not translate well to audio.
- 📈 Focus on listener preferences and ensure that the audiobook format makes sense for the content being presented.
- 🔍 Use keyword research to find profitable niches with less competition, aiming for keywords with around 100 results or less, under 100 reviews on competitors, and a Best Seller Rank (BSR) below 10k.
- 📉 Avoid niches with too many results or too few, as this can indicate either high competition or low demand.
- 💰 Longer audiobooks not only rank higher on platforms like Audible but also offer a higher price tier, leading to higher royalties.
- ✍️ Consider the cost of production when creating longer audiobooks, as they may require more investment in writing and narration.
- 📊 Use tools like BSR Master to analyze the market demand and competition level for specific keywords in the audiobook industry.
- 📝 Create a series of audiobooks to maximize profits by bundling shorter books into longer, more valuable packages.
- 📚 The script suggests that creating a series allows for the repurposing of content into different formats, potentially increasing revenue without additional costs.
- 👍 Engage with the audience by asking for video suggestions and feedback to improve content and cater to viewer interests.
Q & A
What are the three main ways to make money with audiobooks on Audible and ACX according to Dane?
-The three main ways are: 1) Making audiobooks that are five hours or more in length, 2) Focusing on what listeners want and ensuring the book makes sense in audio format, and 3) Using a keyword profitability criteria list to select niches and keywords for the audiobooks.
Why is making audiobooks five hours or more beneficial for standing out in the market?
-Audiobooks that are five hours or more are less saturated than those around three hours, which are more common. Longer books can rank higher and sell at a higher price point, thus adding more value and potentially leading to more sales.
What is the approximate word count for an audiobook to be around five hours long?
-An audiobook is typically around five hours long if it contains about 40,000 to 45,000 words, although this can vary depending on the narration speed and style.
Why might it be more expensive to produce a longer audiobook?
-Producing a longer audiobook can be more expensive because it requires paying for more words to be written by a ghostwriter and more hours to be narrated, which is often billed per finished hour.
How does the price of an audiobook on Audible relate to its length?
-Longer audiobooks, such as those five hours or more, are often priced higher than shorter ones, with a three-hour audiobook typically priced around $14.99, while a five-hour book might be priced at $19.99 or more.
What types of books might not translate well into audio format according to Dane?
-Books that require visual elements, such as cookbooks and how-to tutorial style books with pictures, may not make sense in audio format because listeners typically want to see the images and follow along with the content visually.
What is a keyword profitability criteria list, and how is it used to select audiobook topics?
-A keyword profitability criteria list is a set of factors used to assess the potential profitability of a niche or keyword for an audiobook. It includes checking for a certain number of results, review count of competitors, and the Best Seller Rank (BSR) to ensure there is demand but not too much competition.
What is a good range for the number of results when researching potential audiobook topics?
-A good range for the number of results is around 100 or so, indicating a balance between having a niche with enough demand but not too much competition.
What is the significance of the BSR (Best Seller Rank) when evaluating a niche for an audiobook?
-A lower BSR indicates that an audiobook is more popular and sells better. Dane suggests aiming for a BSR below 10k for audiobooks, as this suggests a good balance of demand and competitiveness in the market.
What is the bonus way to make money publishing audiobooks as mentioned by Dane?
-The bonus way is to create audiobooks that can be part of a series and then bundle them together to form longer, more profitable books. This allows for maximizing the value of the content and potentially increasing sales.
How does bundling audiobooks from a series potentially increase profits?
-Bundling allows for the creation of longer audiobooks without additional content creation costs. By combining two or more books from a series, publishers can offer longer listening experiences at a higher price point, thus increasing potential profits.
Outlines
📚 Maximizing Profit with Long Audiobooks on Audible and ACX
In the first paragraph, Dane introduces the video's focus on strategies for making money through audiobook publishing on Audible and ACX. He emphasizes the importance of creating audiobooks that are five hours or longer, which he finds to be more profitable and less saturated than the traditional three-hour format. Dane explains that longer books can stand out in the market, potentially ranking higher and selling more, especially since they can be priced higher on Audible. He also touches on the financial implications of producing longer books, including the costs of ghostwriting and narration, and assures viewers that the investment can pay off in the long run.
🎧 Ensuring Audiobook Format Suitability and Keyword Research
The second paragraph delves into the importance of ensuring that the content of an audiobook makes sense in an audio format, using cookbooks and knitting guides as examples of books that may not translate well to audio. Dane then introduces the concept of keyword profitability criteria for selecting profitable niches, suggesting that one should aim for niches with at least 100 results to ensure demand but not so many that the competition is overwhelming. He advises looking for niches where competitors have fewer than 100 reviews to increase the chances of ranking and emphasizes the significance of a good Best Seller Rank (BSR) for assessing demand and competition.
🔖 Leveraging Series and Bundles for Increased Audiobook Profits
In the final paragraph, Dane presents a bonus strategy for increasing profits through audiobook publishing: creating series and bundling books. He illustrates how producing a series of books, each around 40,000 words, can be combined to form longer audiobooks, effectively doubling or even quadrupling the content without additional costs. This approach not only maximizes the use of existing content but also allows for the creation of more valuable products that can be sold at higher prices, thus increasing overall revenue from the same amount of work.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Audiobooks
💡Audible
💡ACX
💡Self-publishing
💡Royalty rate
💡Saturated market
💡Narrative speaking
💡Keyword profitability
💡BSR (Best Sellers Rank)
💡Series
💡Bundling
Highlights
Three main ways to make money by publishing audiobooks through Audible and ACX.
Making audiobooks five hours or more to stand out from competitors.
Audiobooks of five hours typically require around 40,000 to 45,000 words.
Longer audiobooks sell for higher prices and get higher royalty rates.
Focus on listeners' needs, avoiding audio formats for books that require visual aids like cookbooks.
Ensure your audiobook makes sense in audio format to avoid wasting resources.
Keyword profitability criteria for audiobooks include a minimum of three hours, ideally five hours.
Look for keywords with around 100 results or less to avoid high competition.
Check competitor reviews to ensure they are generally around or less than 100 reviews.
BSR (Best Seller Rank) should be below 10,000 to ensure demand for the audiobook.
Creating a series allows bundling books for longer, more profitable audiobooks.
Bundling books in a series can create additional audiobooks without additional content creation costs.
Use a plugin like BSR Master to check the competitiveness and demand for audiobook niches.
Examples of keyword research and how to use criteria to evaluate potential audiobook niches.
Encouragement to engage with the content by subscribing, liking, and commenting on the video.
Transcripts
in today's video i'm going over three
main things to focus on when it comes to
making money
publishing audiobooks through audible
and acx
what is going on guys welcome to the
channel if you're new here my name is
dane and on this channel i talk all
about self-publishing books on
amazon on entrepreneurship and just
lifestyle in general so if that kind of
thing interests you
make sure you subscribe drop a like on
the video and hit the notification bell
so you know when i post
new videos in today's video i'll be
going over three of the main ways that
you're going to be making money
when it comes to publishing audiobooks
through audible and acx so with these
three ways i'm just going over them in
my computer here that allows me a bonus
way at the end so make sure you stick
around for that
but anyways let's jump into my computer
and get into these so number one
is making audio books five hours or more
okay and this is going to come as a
shock to a lot of people
uh and i totally understand it when i
first made started making audiobooks
start making money with them this wasn't
really the case the main thing that you
probably are
aware of if you're aware of how to make
money with audiobooks and
self-publishing audiobooks and stuff
like that
is getting them to around three hours
longer or more
and that's still totally fine but what i
found within the most recent months is
that three hour
long audiobooks are pretty saturated and
if you can get that thing
to five hours or more you're going to
stand out
by default without having to do much
more work okay
and i'm talking about staying up from
competitors here and typically speaking
a book that is around 30
000 25 000 words is me around three
hours or more
longer when it comes to five hours or
more usually around 40 or 45 000 words
i'll talk about this in a second though
okay
so anyways most competitors are gonna
aim for three hours okay this is what i
just mentioned
and it's kind of the medium that most
people are going to aim for and it's
kind of gotten
too saturated at this point and as you
can see i said this is starting to get
outdated and i'm not trying to say it's
a bad thing to have a 30
a 3 hour or 30 000 long word audio book
it's totally fine you can totally get
away with it still with a bunch of
niches but if you want to make it easier
on yourself
into in order to compete with different
people different niches different
keywords on audible
five hours is beginning to be the sweet
spot so like i just said five hours only
requires your books to be around 40
to 45 000 words long you can do 50 000
words just to be safe generally speaking
10 000 words equals an hour
in audio so it's up to you i find i've
found that even sometimes a 35 000 word
book can get to five hours long it
depends how fast your narrative speaking
uh how many images you have them uh
explaining stuff like that
40 to 45 000 words will generally get
you to five hours or more long
and finally it might cost more to have
this kind of thing made
obviously because the book is longer you
have to pay for a ghostwriter
unless you're running yourself that's
totally fine but if you're hiring a
ghostwriter the more words that they're
writing the more it's going to cost
and the longer it is the more it's going
to cost to have it narrated because
you're usually paying per finished hour
but trust me in the long run this will
pay off huge because you're gonna make
way more money because it'll rank higher
you'll get way more sales
if it's five hours or more long it just
adds way more value to the book
and remember on audible if you're
familiar um a
five hour long audio book actually is a
higher priced tier than a three hour
audio book a three hour a book sells
around 14.99 on audible
five hours usually 19.99 or more so
you're getting a higher royalty rate
when it's five hours longer it's ranking
higher because it's more popular you're
out competing
the competitors with three hour long
audiobooks it just makes more sense
number two is focus on the listeners
wants now
what do i mean by this so make sure your
books make sense
in audio format an example of this is
that cookbooks make
basically no sense in audio format don't
get me wrong maybe
some of them actually make sense maybe
you like to have audio formatted
cookbooks but for the most part when you
think about it if you're trying to put a
cookbook into audio format it's
generally not really going to make sense
because most people who are reading a
cookbook
want to look at the pictures they want
to look at the recipe and follow along
as they're creating
the recipe or the meal or whatever it is
especially with pictures and cookbooks
people want to see pictures of what the
recipe of the finished product is going
to look like so a cookbook in audio
format
just doesn't make a whole lot of sense
so that's just one thing to keep in mind
how to style books that require pictures
so for example like knitting for
beginners and i'll show you this in just
a second
make no sense either a how-to tutorial
style book that has like pictures in it
if you're putting that into
audio format just kind of think for a
second how is that going to make sense
and why would someone buy that over the
paperback
or ebook version of your book i'll show
you an example of this right now so if i
go to here and i want to show you the
five hour thing i forgot to show you
this before but for example if i search
up real estate investing
the books that are ranking highest are
the ones that are longer okay 13 hours
nine hours long nine hours long five
hours long
you have to go all the way down to the
what is it fifth or sixth result
to find a book that's ranking that's at
three hours long all the other ones
around it are super long eight hours 16
hours so the longer your book is
the better chance it's going to sell
higher it's going to sell for a higher
price you can see this one's 24.99
because it's 16 hours
19.95 eight hour long 14.95 for the
third the three hour long so
that just kind of to prove my point what
i was talking about there that's just
what i've found over the past few months
you just be able to get away with three
hour audiobooks no problem
but now five hours kind of seems like
the sweet spot to expand on what i was
just talking about with knitting for
beginners you'll see there's only 25
results and i know that seems low it's
like oh there's no competition i could
definitely compete in this but there's
kind of a reason
that there's only 25 results name for
beginners it doesn't make sense and i'm
using this plugin called
bsr master to see the bsr for audiobooks
and you'll see they're all like 200k
plus 140
excuse me 280 265. so very high they're
not a whole lot of demand for these guys
i'm looking at audiobooks and i'll talk
about this in a second we're looking for
audiobooks that are below
10k or so so you can see they're very
high they're not selling very well
and it just doesn't make sense to make a
knitting for beginners booking in audio
format
number three on this list is keyword
profitability criteria list okay so
let's go over the things that are going
to make your audiobook
sell if you want to get into a certain
niche or keyword
so three hours minimum or five hours
ideally
right i'm just talking about this but
you want to make sure you can get that
thing to three hours
minimum or five hours ideally i already
talked about this but this is the
keyword profitability
criteria list for reason number three on
how to make money with auto audio books
number two is there a hundred or so
results or less
and don't go for that really low number
because that example i just showed you
with knitting for beginners there's 25
there seems very low
but that kind of means there's no
there's no demand for it either right so
make sure it's around 100 results or so
you don't want like thousands of results
like that real estate for beginners gear
looked up there there's way too much
competition there but around 100 is a
good number to look for
another one is generally around or less
than 100 reviews on competitors that
you're going to compete with so if
there's thousands of reviews on all of
the competitors it'd be very hard to
rank on that first page and get
that's social proof to out-compete the
other people who have like thousands of
reviews already on their books no one's
gonna buy a book
that has only a couple reviews compared
to a book with thousands
i finally bsr below 10k just talked
about that with the knitting for
beginner's example
200k is very high with that example so
10k is a good
benchmark when it comes to popular
audiobooks and when we talk about
um books on kdp so like paperbacks and
ebooks we're looking for around 150k
but since there's way less competition
on audible
um 10k to 20k and under is a good range
when it comes to an average bsr
i'll show you some examples right now so
i go into audible
um i just searched up a few examples
like the real estate for beginners one
you saw i had like a thousand results
tons of books with thousands of reviews
very hard to compete with the bsrs are
really good
two thousand one or two thousand again
two thousand
seven hundred so there's lots of demand
for them but it's gonna be hard to
compete with this niche uh anisha is
kind of in between
700 results for options trading it's not
showing me the bsrs for some reason but
i'm assuming these are pretty low
there's tons of results there's probably
a lot of demand for these kind of things
but they have thousands of reviews as
well going to be hard to compete with
not even thousands hundreds so it's not
too bad to be honest with you but you
can see four hundred five thousand
that's a tough one
um it's actually not too bad in the
reviews department it's just that
there's a lot of results
be hard to compete with that uh if i go
to off the grid this is another one
you can see this one's a little bit
better and my what i was talking about
before
the length obviously the longer ones are
ranking higher this one only is two
hours this ranking high it has tons of
reviews
to the social proof so it's kind of
outweighing that six hours long three
hours long so this is a niche you should
probably get away with a three hour long
audio book like i was saying before not
all niches you need it but some niches
if you want to stand out
now it's getting to the point where you
need to make a five hour long audio book
to stand out
but you see the bsrs aren't amazing here
thirty thousand hundred thousand
sixty eight thousand so this wouldn't be
a keyword that's super super popular but
there's only 85 results it's not
too bad in that area hydroponics i
always use this
tried and true um but it's not loading
the bsr for some reason sometimes this
plug-in works sometimes it doesn't
165 results it's not too bad um but you
can see
the competitors under 100 reviews just
not too bad either so it's definitely a
decent niche
unfortunately i can't see the bsr so i'm
not 100 sure how in demand this keyword
is i'd imagine it's not too bad but not
too amazing
um last one here is how to talk to
anyone and you'll see the very first
result has a ton of reviews so be tough
to compete with
but as you scroll below it there's not a
lot of books that have thousands of
reviews so it wouldn't be too bad to get
in here
um how to influence how to win friends
as obviously that's just kind of an
outlier in here
um but there's not a bad niche you can
see
the bsrs are pretty low not super low
but it's not a bad one so that's a
decent example not a whole lot of
results so
just want to show you guys some
different examples and how i would do q
research if i was looking for things
in this criteria here that i was talking
about finally let's get into the bonus
way to make money
publishing audiobooks and it is creating
audiobooks that can be put into a
series you're probably wondering why a
series well with this series this means
you can make
singles and then combine them for even
longer more profitable books
in a bundled format so for example if
you have a four book series and each of
those books has 40k
words that means that each one will be
around for five hours each
okay so you have 20 hours of audio
content there in a in a series of books
that are all
similar with that you can bundle two of
them
and make a 10 hour long bundle so
that'll be another book
and then you make a second book out of
the other two and make another 10 hour
long audio book so in total you have
six audio books okay so you're actually
expanding off of work
that you're not even paying for because
you're just bundling them together which
is completely allowed at audible's terms
okay i'm not breaking any terms with
this you can bundle similar books
and then you'll get two five hour long
books put together it makes a 10 hour
long book
or you go ahead and put a four or four
of those books together and make a
massive bundle
20 hours long and make even more money
okay
um i know this is common knowledge when
it comes to kdp lots of people make
bundles totally fine i don't see a lot
of people taking advantage of audiobook
bundles
and this is definitely an area that you
should take advantage of if you want to
make a lot of money with audible
okay so that's the bonus way to make
money publishing books through
audible anyways guys that is pretty much
it for this video on how to make
money publishing audiobooks gave you
three ways plus a bonus way
way number one was making them five
hours or longer
way number two was focusing on the
listeners wants all right
number three was the keyword
profitability criteria there and i don't
need to go over it again you can go back
in the video
what falls into that criteria and
finally the bonus one was making a
series and making bundles
out of those similar books okay so if
you guys enjoyed this make sure you let
me know in the comment section down
below if you have any video suggestions
or anything you want me to make about
publishing online
leave now below i'll definitely take a
look at those i'm looking for
suggestions for videos all the time
if you guys enjoyed it make sure you
subscribe drop a like on the video and
hit the notification bell so you know
when i post new videos
try to post new videos every single week
but that's it for this one and i'll see
you in the next one
peace
[Music]
you
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