Susan Friedmann [00:00:00]:
Welcome to Book Marketing Mentors, the weekly podcast where you learn proven strategies, tools, ideas and tips from the masters. Every week I introduce you to a marketing master who will share their expertise to help you market and sell more books. Today, my special guest is Mary Catherine Jones. Mary Catherine is the owner and executive producer of the Audiobook Experience, an award winning boutique studio specializing in in audiobook recording and production. She loves helping authors bring their stories to life, whether that means guiding them to use their own voices or matching them with the perfect narrator. Working from her Vermont studio and through partner studios nationwide, she ensures every audiobook captures the heart of the story. Mary Katherine, it's an absolute pleasure to welcome you to the show and thank you. And thank you for being this week's guest, expert and mentor.
Mary Catherine Jones [00:01:02]:
I am so excited to be here. Thank you so much, Susan, for having me.
Susan Friedmann [00:01:06]:
It's my pleasure. And I am so excited because as you know, you are just almost on my doorstep. And that is so unusual when you live out in the boondocks to have somebody else live out in the boondocks.
Mary Catherine Jones [00:01:20]:
So we love our boondocks.
Susan Friedmann [00:01:21]:
We do. We certainly do. Now, as you know, we've had a few episodes on recording audiobooks and first of all, that it's such a dynamic marketing experience for authors. However, the question often comes up, should I record my own book? Now, I know that we've talked about this at length and I thought, hey, that would make a great angle for talking about audiobooks. So let's jump in and talk about who should narrate your audiobook and if so, can I? Because I, as the author, feel that I'm the only one who can do this. Let's start there.
Mary Catherine Jones [00:02:07]:
Oh, I get this question all the time and it's actually one of my favorites to answer. To answer the question, should I narrate my own audiobook? The answer is maybe. And we come back to sort of the overall arching. What is your marketing goal? Who is your audience? What are your objectives? Right. For me, very broadly speaking, if your book is a work of fiction, unless you are a trained narrator or actor or actress, then probably you want to let somebody who is trained in that area be a professional narrator and do that job for you and narrate your audiobook. However, if your book is a memoir or is a work of thought leadership, if you are a professional speaker or if that is something that you have on the bucket list for perhaps using your book to market your expertise, then the scales definitely tip in favor of you narrating your audiobook. If you're out there in public speaking about your topic, people are familiar with you and your voice. And then if they start to listen to your audiobook and it's not your voice, if they're listening to the sample, there's a disconnect, which means they're going to be like, well, wait, do I even have the right book? What's going on? Whereas if it's your voice, you're literally building that authority and marketing leadership conveying that through your voice.
Mary Catherine Jones [00:03:28]:
So you want to carry that on in your audiobook. Similarly, with memoir, this is your story. It should be your voice that is telling it. There are circumstances where that's not going to be the answer, Particularly if you have an accent that makes your language difficult to understand for the listener, then we'd recommend getting a professional narrator. And also if you have a speech impediment that is so severe that, again, it impedes the ability for somebody to understand, we would look at getting a professional narrator. Or if you just really, really, really cannot stand the thought of doing it, I will try to convince you otherwise. But of course, if you do not want to narrate your audiobook, we will find somebody perfect for you, which is excellent.
Susan Friedmann [00:04:15]:
And I'd never thought of it in terms of an accent. Obviously, I have an accent. However, I believe that it's one that people don't mind listening to most of the time.
Mary Catherine Jones [00:04:26]:
Not all the time, sure, but that's really important. And we have such a rich collection of people from all over the world who have written amazing memoirs, and some of them still carry a lot of the overtones of their native language. That can be hard for the average American to decipher. That's part of the conversation that we have.
Susan Friedmann [00:04:50]:
And I know so many authors have said to me, I want to do it myself. However, let's look at the next step. The reality of doing this. This is hard work. I know authors who've done it and said, I'm not sure that I would do this again because it's a lot of work and a lot of time. Talk to us more about that aspect of it.
Mary Catherine Jones [00:05:15]:
First of all, authors can definitely do this themselves. And then you parse that down. So what does that mean to do it yourself? Are you constructing a recording studio and getting the equipment and recording yourself and doing the editing and the post production? I mean, which one can do? That's an awful lot of time and an awfully steep learning curve. If that's not something you're already familiar with, you can shorten a Lot of that by working with a professional studio, professional producer. We know that the way that it works in the audiobook industry, everything is kind of priced and estimated by the finished listening hour, which we determine based on the number of words in a book. Right. Very much like your editor probably is pricing their services for you. If we know that we've got like a 50,000 word book is going to end up being a little more than five finished listening hours, we'll just do that for simplicity's sake.
Mary Catherine Jones [00:06:12]:
My rule of thumb for non professional narrators is to schedule up to three hours of recording time for each finished hour. So for a five hour finished book, would schedule probably 15 hours of recording. Might be able to do it in 11 to 12, but it's always nice to have that extra time because you never know what might come up. And then after that it would be twice that much time again to get your finished listening hour with the editing and the post production, that kind of thing. Most books, you know, especially of that length, you can be recorded and done in less than a week. 100,000 words will take less, longer.
Susan Friedmann [00:06:53]:
Yes. And as I said, it's so tiring. I mean, even doing it for three hours or two hours, that's a lot. I know. I've tried doing, even recording an article which might be, I don't know, 1500 words, 2000 words, sometimes I just sort of fall over myself. And you've got to do it all in one go because if you pick it up again, let's say even a few minutes later, the sound can change somehow. It just doesn't come out the same way.
Mary Catherine Jones [00:07:28]:
Well, that's, that's absolutely the case. If you're doing this on your own without a professional studio. The beauty of a professional studio is that is exactly why we exist. So that you can record and then come back three months later if you need to and do a pickup. We do all of that adjusting. That's what sound engineers or our ears are supersonic. I can hear. Oh, that doesn't sound quite like it did last time.
Mary Catherine Jones [00:07:53]:
Let's adjust your position to the mic. Let's do all of these things as far as pickups go. And it's actually, it's a common misconception that for recording an audiobook you have to get it all right in one go. Dear God, you can't do that. You can't get a chapter in one go. You probably can't even get a paragraph in one go. Sometimes the way that we record in the studio is we're recording and then, oh, you make a mistake and either you flag it or I flag it. And so the recording software is such, and the engineer's skill is such that we pick it up from the last breath or the end of the last sentence.
Mary Catherine Jones [00:08:23]:
You hear the last few words you were saying. Gets it back in your head, that rhythm and then you pick it up from there. And that's how we do it. That's the beauty of working with a.
Susan Friedmann [00:08:33]:
Professional producer, which makes all the difference and what came to mind. And you and I have talked about this many, many years ago. I did some voiceover work and it was only. You were very fancy, very fancy Jaguar cars, Victoria's Secret. But I remember These were like 30 second commercials, right? And there was one take. I think we did it 26 times before we got it right. I was embarrassed, but the engineer just said, you know what, even the pros have this happen, so don't worry about it. Because each time I was like, oh my goodness, I've got to get it right this time.
Susan Friedmann [00:09:15]:
I oh my goodness, I've got to get it right this time.
Mary Catherine Jones [00:09:19]:
It's like, well, but that's also. You have the concentration rate of a 30 second commercial spot versus a five hour audiobook. We're not parsing every 30 second clip for, you know, maximum grabbing ability. That's what your retail sample is for. But really the goal of an audiobook, a good audiobook is to be conversational, to be a storytelling and to be a real voice. You want it to be professionally produced. It doesn't have to have the sex and the sizzle that Victoria's Secret needed for that 32nd spot and getting the.
Susan Friedmann [00:09:52]:
Words out, you know, sometimes they just don't flow the way I feel that they would naturally. And that often is what stops you. It's like, huh?
Mary Catherine Jones [00:10:03]:
You know, or they try to cram in too many words. You know, you're like, this is a 30 second spot, but you've given me a 60 second script. Can we.
Susan Friedmann [00:10:13]:
I remember, was it like 26 words every 10 seconds or something?
Mary Catherine Jones [00:10:20]:
I know when I'm doing something at sort of super, super fast speed, I can do up to about 180 for a 60 second. But that's really, that's taking out almost all breath. And it's just, it's not pretty.
Susan Friedmann [00:10:34]:
No, it's a race. It's like, can I get to the finish line in the shortest time possible?
Mary Catherine Jones [00:10:39]:
Exactly.
Susan Friedmann [00:10:41]:
But let's talk more about the whole idea of the audiobook. I mean, as we know, it's Sort of gaining in momentum with regard to this is how so many readers are consuming books. And I know I'm one of them. I'm known as a slow reader. So when audiobooks came along, it was just like, wow, this was a gift from heaven for me. I was in a book club and they're reading these 300 page books in a week. I'm like, oh my goodness. I mean, that put me off.
Susan Friedmann [00:11:17]:
But if I could listen to it, I didn't mind listening to it for hours on end. I didn't know if that was cheating or not, but.
Mary Catherine Jones [00:11:25]:
Oh, it's absolutely not. You are not alone in that experience. As we can see just by the numbers. There's been a double digit increase in audiobook consumption every year for the last 10 years and it is predicted to continue along that trajectory. At this point, the audiobook market in publishing is between 13 and 15% of the publishing market. 15% of publishing sales are for audiobooks. And we know that that's the amount of listeners that prefer to read with their ears. And for exactly the same reason that you were saying.
Mary Catherine Jones [00:12:03]:
It's an easier way for many people to read and be able to do other things at the same time. And for me, I love the print version and I love the audio version and I love, you know, although sometimes I'll have my own private, like, I'm not sure about this narrator kind of things, but being able to have that fluidity and continue the story no matter what I'm doing is really wonderful.
Susan Friedmann [00:12:31]:
It's interesting. You talk about being very conscious of the reader. I've stopped listening to books that the reader just sort of, somehow their voice grates or it was like boring. It's like, I can't listen to this. It's going to put me to sleep.
Mary Catherine Jones [00:12:50]:
You and me both. And of course it's like any form of media or art, a lot of it, it's very subjective. And that's why I think that overall it's a good thing to have the preview ability before you purchase an audiobook to listen to, you know, they have a five minute segment. The only caveat is that it used to be that you could, as a producer and an author, we could sort of be very clever and okay, let's maybe build, get something in the middle of the action and you know, really kind of hook the potential listener with that. But now what Audible has been doing is even though we send them like this is the 5 minute retail sample we want you to play, they just start from the very beginning. Like from the opening credits and keep going. That can be a little bit of a challenge because sometimes you have maybe somebody else is doing an introduction and it's not the main narrator. Sometimes there's a lot of disclaimers or letters or something like that.
Mary Catherine Jones [00:13:49]:
So as a producer, I'm trying to figure out different ways how can we maximize that retail sample and make sure we get it up at the front and also, of course, have it as polished as possible.
Susan Friedmann [00:14:00]:
Now, I have a feeling that many of our listeners are thinking about using AI, potentially as the reader. Talk to us about AI and its role now in audiobooks.
Mary Catherine Jones [00:14:16]:
AI has opened up the ability for people who otherwise would not be able to access professional recording. It gives them the opportunity to put their book in audio. And by and large, I'm all in favor of it evens the playing field in some ways. But like other applications of AI, it also can end up flooding the marketplace. I think that probably your listeners are very familiar with the problems on Amazon with their kdp, that there's some AI agents that are churning out. I don't know, I think that the number was like 350 books a week from the same quote, unquote author. And that's, I guess it's content, but it's not really literature, it's not really a book. And I feel the same way about AI voices.
Mary Catherine Jones [00:15:05]:
There are some applications where it makes sense, particularly if you have a textbook or instructional material that otherwise would be cost prohibitive for turning into an audiobook. Now you can make that accessible to other people for a relatively low cost. The user experience is, it's okay. It's not going to be an immersive artistic experience, but it will get information to the listener, which is in a way that I think is good enough for some applications. But as far as the experience of recording and narrating your book, what I have been told pretty much every time I work with an author, especially of memoir or thought leadership, is that having the experience of literally saying every single word out loud, reconnected them with their material, brought more healing. A lot of times when you are thinking about a memoir that involves trauma, and it just broadened their whole experience of interacting with this work that they created. So to basically press a button and say, well, now I have another iteration of it, I don't know. I mean, if that's what is needed and wanted, then great.
Mary Catherine Jones [00:16:16]:
But I think that you lose a lot in that process.
Susan Friedmann [00:16:19]:
Yeah, I'm sure. Because again, I haven't found yet a company that is Being able to have voices that can really give the intonation, the feeling, the tone, the pitch in the way that works for me. I know that I've heard people say, oh my goodness, they've been able to replicate my voice so perfectly. And I've like tried it and it still sounds robotic in my experience.
Mary Catherine Jones [00:16:49]:
And remember, I'm a professional engineer, so I kind of know what I'm doing here. I have played around with those different modules and duplicating my voice and all of that. Cause I'm. I need to know what's out there, what are the possibilities. And you end up spending. At least for me, to get a product that I would be even remotely thinking about releasing, you know, into the wild, I was going to have to spend more time fiddling with it than it would have taken to just record my voice in the first place. Just have me saying the actual words in the way I want them to sound. It comes down to how do I want to spend my time? I'd like to spend my time with real voices and doing real human things and having human interactions.
Mary Catherine Jones [00:17:33]:
Not working with algorithms and trying to tweak waveforms. That's not of interest to me.
Susan Friedmann [00:17:40]:
That's a lot of work.
Mary Catherine Jones [00:17:41]:
Yeah. When you're recording, it's a voice workout. And one of the things that I always do with the people I'm working with is I give them a set of vocal warmups and exercises, which really make a huge difference in terms of stamina. There was one woman that I worked with, she's a doctor, and she said, I've been doing public speaking for the last 10 years. And she said, I know that after 45 minutes, I'm kind of done. I actually sent her a vocal workout that was designed specifically to build stamina. And she did it. And she came in and she said, this has changed my life.
Mary Catherine Jones [00:18:21]:
Because she was so diligent about doing these vocal exercises every day that now she goes out and she doesn't have to worry about losing her voice. Now that's a very extreme example. For her, that was a 45 minute workout every single day. Usually I recommend a 3 to 5 minute workout the week before recording to make sure that you're in tip top shape for the booth and of course, drinking lots and lots of water. And there's actual diet recommendations that I give because there are certain foods that increase the mucus buildup, which is such a lovely image, but can affect the vocal cords and even the interior sounds of the mouth. There are things that we can do to make the recording experience as smooth as possible.
Susan Friedmann [00:19:02]:
Yes. And I know that as a professional speaker, any kind of milk products. You and I discuss this too. Is that milk products cause that extra mucus and don't have ice cold water. I mean, that freezes those vocal nodules.
Mary Catherine Jones [00:19:17]:
It constricts. I mean, so it's just room temperature. Warm tea. Hot tea can be good as long as it's not scalding. Honey really can be a real miracle. And I actually, I decided to invest in some Manuka honey because it's got some of those additional properties for the studio. So I'm. I'm very excited to have that here.
Susan Friedmann [00:19:36]:
Yes. Manuka honey. Even though it's hellishly expensive, but it's great stuff. Now, Mary Catherine, one of the questions or concerns that authors have come to me with is if I do an audiobook, will that prohibit people buying the printed version of the book? Have you heard that at all?
Mary Catherine Jones [00:20:01]:
I haven't heard that particular concern. My answer to that particular concern, though is people who want to read your book want to read it the way they want to read it. They want it in the print version if that's how they want it. They want it in an E version, digital version, if that's how they want it or they want it as audio. I know many people who, if it's not available in audio, they won't buy it. And certainly a lot of people who, if it's audio only, will be like, well, that's weird. But you know, okay. Because they prefer the printed version.
Mary Catherine Jones [00:20:32]:
In my experience, what I do when I love a book is I'm going to end up with the print version because I love the touch and the feel of reading books. But when I'm absorbed in a story, I don't want to have to give it up when I'm doing other things. So I'm also going to purchase the audiobook and if I want to be able to take it to the gym and read it when I'm on the bike or something like that, then I'm also going to get the digital print version. That's because I'm a book lover. I'm a book person. And so if anything, I think that the more mediums you have, the more that you're going to have the ability to increase those sales from cross promotions and all of that.
Susan Friedmann [00:21:12]:
And knowing my habits of how I consume material, yes, I'll listen to the book, but I listen to it in the car or I listen to it walking or at the gym, as you say. Then there are some things that I want to see, I want to remember, especially with a nonfiction book. I think a fiction book is different because it's sort of escapism and you're into the story. But as a reference, if I'm listening to something nonfiction, then I need to see it as well as hear it. So I know that I might buy the ebook or the printed book.
Mary Catherine Jones [00:21:50]:
Right. For me, my bookshelf is something that I don't know. It's like where my memory is housed. And if I read something, a digital book or I listen to it and I say, oh, this was amazing, I'm absolutely. I'm going to make space for it on my bookshelf because I want to be able to look up and remember that book. And that's what the actual physical book does for me.
Susan Friedmann [00:22:12]:
Yes, very much so. I'm in the same ballpark here with that. How about marketing an audiobook? What's the difference between marketing it as an audiobook versus how people market their books as a printed book?
Mary Catherine Jones [00:22:29]:
The shortest answer, which is also the best answer, is that marketing your book is marketing your audiobook. As I said, people who are interested in your book, people aren't looking for something because it's an audio. They're looking for your content, and they want to have your content the way that they want to receive it, which is either going to be print or audio. So by marketing your book, people are going to say, oh, that's great. Is it available in audio? What I like to encourage authors to think about is think about your audiobook as an additional collection of marketing assets, just as when you are marketing your book, you've got your cover and you've got your endorsements, and you've got maybe some different select chapters that you're sharing, you can think about your audiobook as a collection of sound and sound clips that you can also use for marketing purposes. Maybe you take a segment from the book and you create an audiobook trailer, and maybe that's a compilation of different segments. Maybe you have select short segments. Maybe, you know, if you're thought leadership, your 10 best tips and tricks, and you isolate them and you have them come up with the text written as a little video on Instagram, accompanied by the actual sound clip.
Mary Catherine Jones [00:23:54]:
There are lots of different ways to use those audiobook assets, and I always recommend that you think about that while you're going into the recording studio so that you can ask your producer or engineer to isolate those. In addition to, of course, the chapter files, which you'll be receiving at the end of the audiobook recording process, but additional marketing clips. Can we have these things pulled out? You can do that after the fact too. But it's really nice to think about it in advance so that you have them sooner rather than later.
Susan Friedmann [00:24:28]:
I love that idea. That's dynamite. I'd not heard that one before, but it makes so much sense.
Mary Catherine Jones [00:24:34]:
Oh sure.
Susan Friedmann [00:24:35]:
Now how about the library market? That's a market that authors are not quite sure about with print and then as ebooks, but now the audio version. Is there a market within the library market?
Mary Catherine Jones [00:24:51]:
Absolutely. When we talk about distribution, I think about it as there's sort of two and a half buckets, right? You've got an opportunity to distribute through Audible Amazon, and you can do that exclusively through them. They like to keep people in their universe and so they reward that with a higher royalty share rate. But you also cede control a lot of the time on what your audiobook is priced at. You might log on and find out that it's priced at 299. And what. When did that happen? Well, there you go. There's also of course, the wide distribution model where you are able to distribute across many, many different platforms, including Amazon, Audible, but specifically giving you access to the library market because libraries, they will not buy from Audible Amazon, because they don't get any discount.
Mary Catherine Jones [00:25:40]:
So if you are exclusive to Amazon, then you are not going to hit the library market. As far as marketing to the library market, we know that even within the audiobook market and how that's growing, one of the most robust segments of that market is the library market because so many people love their Libby app and they just add things to, you know, their queue and wait for it to become available and then they listen. Being able to be available in the library market, if that's part of your strategy and if you are a fiction book, it should be, then you want to make sure that you are accessible there. Marketing to the library market is a separate marketing channel. That's what the, you know, American Library association conference is for. There's certain publications that are marketed directly to librarians and that's a little outside of my area of expertise, but it's not specifically audiobook specific. It's again, book title specific, great information.
Susan Friedmann [00:26:40]:
And yeah, listeners, if that's something that you are interested in, start doing some research on that because it's another opportunity for distribution for your information. This is a great segue, Mary Catherine, for you to tell our listeners how they can find out more about you and the services you offer?
Mary Catherine Jones [00:27:01]:
Well, my business is The Audiobook Experience. And Susan, you and I were talking about that right before our chat today. We which is, I think it perfectly encapsulates what I provide, which is the experience of recording your audiobook, whether it's your voice or whether we're very involved in casting together. And so my website is theaudiobook experience.com Excellent.
Susan Friedmann [00:27:27]:
It's a great name. I said right from the get go, you know exactly what you do and that's what people want. They want to know what do you do. Yes, I love that. Excellent. And by the way, listeners, I will put all Mary Catherine's information in the show notes, especially if you're driving or you're on the treadmill or wherever you are. All her information will be in the show notes. As you know, Mary Catherine, we always leave our listeners with a golden nugget.
Susan Friedmann [00:28:01]:
What's yours?
Mary Catherine Jones [00:28:03]:
Don't underestimate the power and impact of your own voice. The voice is energy. And the way that you are saying the words you wrote is going to hit the listener different than if I said the words you wrote or if Susan said the words that you wrote. And know that that is very much a part of what you're sharing with the world is that energy and the presence behind your voice. Perfect.
Susan Friedmann [00:28:32]:
Oh, so poignant. So poignant. Well, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom. This was amazing. And a totally different slant on audiobooks, which we haven't had yet. So I really love that. Thank you. And listeners, if your book isn't selling the way you want it or expected to, let's you and I jump on a quick call together to brainstorm ways to ramp up those sales because you've invested a whole lot of time, money and energy and it's time you got the return you were hoping for.
Susan Friedmann [00:29:10]:
So go to bookmarketingbrainstorm.com to schedule your free call. And in the meantime, I hope this powerful interview sparked some ideas you can use to sell more books. So until next week, here's wishing you much book and author marketing success.
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