Where the Heck is My Audiobook, Jennsen??

Let’s start by addressing the ‘80s-style neon pink elephant in the room: where the heck is the Inversion audiobook? What a great question.

Pyper finished recording at the beginning of August, and we are both so anxious to get it to you. And thanks to a boatload of horrible, terrible, no-good cliffhangers at the end of Continuum ;), I suspect you’re anxious to get it. Unfortunately, much like Continuum before it, it’s currently locked up somewhere in the deep, dark depths of ACX’s (the production company) internal systems. Or possibly it’s been boxed up and filed away in a giant warehouse next to the Ark of the Covenant.

To make a long, sad story short, around the first of the year a confluence of several events (Covid-19, a new audiobook get-rich-quick scheme overloading ACX’s servers, several mysterious, dark forces at work, etc.) conspired to double and even triple the amount of time it takes ACX to review, package and distribute an audiobook. Two weeks became two months or longer. The system ground to a halt. Nine months later, little about the situation has improved.

I don’t care for this state of affairs. Neither do you. Neither does Pyper. So, what are going to do about it?

When it comes to the Inversion audiobook, unfortunately, there’s little to nothing we can do. Based on ACX’s updated guidelines, it should be available by the end of September, and I truly hope that’s the case. But I aim to make certain the situation is very different for the next book, Echo Rift.

The History

First, indulge me a quick story. Let’s hop into the Wayback Machine and set it for 6.5 years ago. In my own personal moonshot, I rolled all the dice and published a not-so-little book called Starshine. It took off like mad (if you’re curious about those delightful details, see “A Singular Day”), and almost immediately, I started getting requests for an audiobook version. Now, I am not a native audiobook listener, and I knew almost nothing about that market. Did people mean like the self-help books-on-tape our parents listened to in the car?

But being an indie author means always learning new systems and skills, so I quickly educated myself. Audiobooks are not particularly friendly to indie publishing due to the specialized production and packaging required, but ACX (a subsidiary of Audible) had recently opened up audiobook production to indie authors. Yay! Except…producing an audiobook is also expensive. For good reason, as it takes a narrator around a hundred hours of work to produce a 15-hour audiobook, and their skill is a rarefied one.

Now, I made some nice money from Starshine in those initial months, but there were credit card bills to pay. A lot of them. (See this blog post.) At the time, I simply couldn’t afford the large front-end financial investment.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, namesake of a certain colony you might be familiar with, said that “luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” Well, as luck would have it, ACX had just introduced a new way to compensate narrators: in return for no up-front payment, the author and the narrator would split the royalties earned 50/50. Fantastic! Except…if the audiobook flopped, the narrator didn’t get paid for their hard work. Naturally, most narrators were reluctant to take that risk. So ACX brought out a carrot: for certain books they judged likely to be successful, they would pay the narrator a stipend if they accepted a royalty share arrangement. ACX judged Starshine to be one of said books, and a generous stipend was attached to the production. This is how I met Pyper Down, and a beautiful working relationship was born.

Just one tiny little caveat: a royalty share arrangement required 7-year exclusivity with ACX, who distributes only to Audible and iTunes. At the time, it seemed an easy price to pay. After all, Audible & iTunes were the only games in Audiobook Town. What else would I have done with the audiobook, anyway?

Onward to the Future

*climbs out of the Wayback Machine and stretches*

Today, Audible and iTunes are most decidedly not the only games in Audiobook Town. Nook, Kobo and Google Play are selling audiobooks directly. A company called Findaway has taken ACX’s model and exploded it, producing audiobooks and distributing them everywhere, including libraries (libraries have always lent audiobooks, but until recently only the physical versions).

This is great news for all of us. More markets means new audiences, greater pricing flexibility (with ACX I have zero control over pricing) and more options in how you listen to audiobooks. Benefits all around.

That 7-year exclusivity isn’t looking too hot anymore, though, is it? Starshine will exit exclusivity next spring, and the rest of the books will gradually follow. As they do, I intend to distribute the audiobooks everywhere—but you don’t really care about that. You already have all the previous audiobooks.

So what about Echo Rift? Well, we’re going to do things a little differently this time. Echo Rift will never be exclusive with ACX. As soon as Pyper is finished recording, the audio files will be uploaded directly to Nook, Kobo, Google Play, Findaway and ACX.

One of the coolest features Findaway offers is an “authors direct” store, where you purchase the audiobook directly from me (using Findaway’s infrastructure). You download a Findaway mobile app that works similar to the Audible app, and you listen just like you always have. Even better, I’ll get to set the price; it’ll definitely be lower than the price Audible charges, which means a lower cost for you as well as a higher portion of the proceeds for Pyper and myself. Everybody wins. I anticipate that the Echo Rift audiobook should be available for direct purchase within 2 weeks after Pyper finishes recording.

I’m also looking into starting a Patreon for the express purpose of providing even faster access to new audiobooks. There’s no app, so you’ll have to listen in your browser, but for a thoroughly reasonable price, you should be able to do so within 2-3 days after Pyper finishes recording.

In the weeks that follow the initial release, the audiobook will become available at numerous retailers—including, yes, Audible. How long it takes to get there will still be up to ACX, but if you’re an Audible devotee, you’ll always be able to get my audiobooks there. Eventually. :/

There are bound to be some bumps in the road, particularly with the first release. I ask for your understanding and your feedback—let me know what’s working and what isn’t!

For me, being an indie author has always been, first and foremost, about control. Come what may, for good or ill, through screw-ups and successes, everything about my books is up to me. The words, the formatting, the cover, the blurb, the price, where they’re available, the marketing and promotions, and so on. Until recently, audiobooks presented a necessary exception, but going forward, I’ll be able to take a lot of that control back (I happily, of course, cede Pyper’s notable talent to her and her alone).

Retaking the reins makes me happy, and I’m betting that if it means you get new audiobooks faster and cheaper, it’ll make you happy, too.

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