Google Audiobooks launched last week and in over 45 countries and the company is now heavily competing against Audible and Kobo. Indie authors can now submit their own self-published audiobooks to Google via Findaway Voices.
Findaway Voices is a relatively new program and it allows indies to work with established narrators and sound engineers to convert their existing ebook into an audiobook. Findaway is working directly with the authors. There is no marketplace where you browse narrators and send them a message. Findaway is basically a concierge service for audiobook production, they take care of everything. You simply register an account and tell them about your book, the genre and what type narrator you are looking for and they will send you a list of five people who narrate the first chapter of the book, along with the price. The quality of the sample will range, some narrators have their own home studio, others rent a soundbooth at a professional recording studio.
The most compelling reason to publish your audiobook with Findaway is their network of partners. They are the largest audiobook distributor in the world. They deal with Apple iTunes, Audible, Audiobooks.com, Baker & Taylor, Nook Audiobooks, Overdrive, Scribd, Tunein and dozens of others. Once an audiobook is opted into all of these platforms a dashboard will inform the author whenever a sale is made. Some of the sales are produced in real time, while others have their own reporting schedule. Royalties are dependant on the company who is selling the book, there really isn’t an industry standard.
If you are a self-published author and want to get involved in the audiobook space, Findaway Voices is the only way you can get it into the Google Audiobooks ecosystem.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
