Audiobook pricing cap Findaway

[alhawke]

I'm planning on releasing a boxed set of my trilogy on audiobook. I already have books 1-3 out. I was surprised to see a price cap on Findaway at $25.99. I'm working with representatives back and forth to try to manually force a price at $29.99. I figured $29.99 would be more reasonable as each of my audiobooks is selling for $19.99 ??

Well... this got me thinking. Am I being silly to ask for $29.99? Is that priced too high? Are audiobooks priced so low that few readers are going to be willing to spend that on a boxed set? This package will be 25hrs of audio.

This is a bit of a tailored post since many of you aren't releasing boxed sets and most, I think, are with Audible. Audible doesn't even allow price setting.

[Bill Hiatt]

The only way to tell if a price is too high is experimentation.

I've never gotten into audiobooks, but based on the way I react to prices for other types of books, $29.99 doesn't sound too high for a 25 hour box set to me.

It's true that Audible sets very low expectations sometimes.

[TimothyEllis]

That surprises me.

I've seen prices on Audible in the $60 range.

Is there a price shakeup going on generally?

[alhawke]

That surprises me.
I've seen prices on Audible in the $60 range.
Is there a price shakeup going on generally?

Good question. I think there a lot of attempts to keep audio pricing down--maybe it's that hard to sell? Audible, and now Spotify, offer subscription services.

Another interesting trend that really surprises is that some authors are now giving away free audiobooks This is insane with the overhead for an audiobook (unless it's AI). We're all partly responsible for pricing the publishing market in pennies, boxed sets and the like, but a free audiobook is pretty insane when you have to get back at least a $1000 overhead for a human narrator.

Anyway, back to Findaway. Findaway has a cap of $25.99 for your set prices in their programming form. You can't move the dial up. They claim they can do with it with customer service, but I'm still going back and forth with them. I've seen some boxed sets priced in $30 even $40 range so I'm not sure what's going on here.

[PJ Post]

Have you already done audio for the books individually?

If not, I would encourage you to do so first. Release them just like you would a new series, with promos and social media posts for each release. Build them up. This will allow you to price them higher, and make more revenue over the initial run of the trilogy. Once sales slump, then release the boxset to reinvigorate interest, which allows you a fourth promotional opportunity for the series. If this is AI narration, then you can do the whole thing again with a voice actor.

You might even post chapters on a you-tube channel before putting them up anywhere else - or as a Patreon reward.

One IP. Lots of product opportunities. Lots of marketing opportunities. Lots of revenue opportunities.

[alhawke]

Have you already done audio for the books individually?

Yes, I've already released each audiobook one at a time. I'm moving to the boxed set now.
I might release at their low price, $25.99, and adjust it later. This could work for its release (it's very difficult to time audiobook releases with book sales). I'm also trying to have it available for my book 4 coming out this month.

[PJ Post]

Does it matter if they come out together? I know that's a traditional way of thinking about it, but windowing them might give you more opportunity for promotion.

[Bill Hiatt]

That raises an interesting question for audiobooks and others as well.

I've always had much better luck promoting the first book in a series rather than later ones. Promotion on my own mailing list is probably pretty much the same, but promotion through any other venue seems to produce negligible results on subsequent volumes, I suppose because to be interested in book 2 or later, you'd already have to have read book 1, and there's no way to target the promotion specifically to people who've read the first book. Or is my experience just atypical?

[PJ Post]

I've always had much better luck promoting the first book in a series rather than later ones.

This sounds like a Push vs Pull sales strategy problem. And I think it's super common with self-publishers.

Most advertising works by shouting at the customer to buy our stuff. This is why we get louder and more flamboyant ads designed to get people's attention. But people are already inundated with ads. They only have so much attention to spare. This is the Push strategy. Buy! Buy! Buy!

The Pull strategy (using branding) just lets people know who you are, what you're about and where to find your books. It's informational as opposed to a call for action. The trick for this to work is to be super visible. Instead of running one ad, or maybe a couple of promos on the usual mailing list sites (Push), you use social media - a lot. It takes time, but the readers will find you. So, talking about that fourth in the series is another opportunity to tell a story about your brand - more posts, more engagement, more fans. And for platforms like You-Tube, those posts are always going to be there for new fans to discover. So, instead of one-and-done, do the work, and then reuse it as much as possible - keep it working for you.

But you don't ask people to buy your stuff in these posts, that doesn't work, and this is why most self-publishers fail at social media. They think it works like Push advertising. It doesn't. Most of your posts should be about other stuff, not your books per se. But through your brand personality (what you talk about and how you talk about it), readers will figure out who you are for themselves. The ones that like what they're hearing will check out your books - and everything else you do. Some will become fans. Fans are promotional vectors, massively expanding word of mouth recommendations, reviews, engagement, etc. Casual readers don't do any of that. Yeah, you got the sale, but then they just move on to the next thing.

The old days were about Push strategies. The algorithms are about Pushing titles, especially the sponsored ones.

With market segmentation, we can use Pull strategies, which for us, is way more effective; and offers the upside of making the algorithm irrelevant.

[alhawke]

Does it matter if they come out together? I know that's a traditional way of thinking about it, but windowing them might give you more opportunity for promotion.

What do you mean "windowing"? Not sure what this means.

I've always had much better luck promoting the first book in a series rather than later ones.

This sounds like a Push vs Pull sales strategy problem. And I think it's super common with self-publishers.

Most advertising works by shouting at the customer to buy our stuff. This is why we get louder and more flamboyant ads designed to get people's attention. But people are already inundated with ads. They only have so much attention to spare. This is the Push strategy. Buy! Buy! Buy!

But it works PJ. I use a lead-in with advertising, advertising the 1st book at a dropped price. I also drop my 1st book price to lead to others in series (not free, btw, but slight with $2.99 rather than $3.99; audiobook $18.99 rather than $19.99).

[PJ Post]

Windowing is a traditional term. Basically, it means publishing on different sites and in different formats at different times. Usually, it's a planned schedule designed for maximum visibility.

___

I know it works.

But a branding strategy would work better. You wouldn't need to lower the price on your first in series, and you'd be able to charge more across the board. $5.99 - $6.99 for a regular book instead of $3.99. Fans will happily pay more. They want you to succeed.

The Push strategy isn't about building fans (brand loyal repeat customers). There's no long-term plan. It's always about chasing that first customer with deals and discounts and hoping they'll buy the next book.

With that said, I have two business principles I follow pretty consistently:

1) Whatever works works!

2) Don't fix it if it ain't broken.

The good news is, we can still plan for contingencies (no harm no foul), just in case.