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 and help you market more books.
Today, my special guest is Tina Dietz. Tina is an award winning, internationally acclaimed speaker, audiobook publisher, podcast producer, and vocal leadership expert whose work and shows have been featured on media outlets, including ABC, NBC, CBS, The Wall Street Journal, inc.com, and Forbes, Tina's company, Twin Flames Studios, reimagines thought leadership through audiobooks for experts, executives, and founders. Her podcast, "Drink From the Well," reaches more than 300,000 listeners eager to drink her entertaining leadership elixir on the most important topics leaders and teams are dealing with in the workplace.
Oh my goodness, Tina. It's such a pleasure to welcome you back to the show, and thank you for being this week's guest expert.
Tina Dietz [00:01:19]:
Oh, thank you, Susan. It's funny. I'm just listening to myself. I'm like, Yeah, she sounds pretty cool. What the hell do you have?
Susan Friedmann [00:01:24]:
I know. I have the same thing when people read my intro. I was like, oh my goodness. Who are they talking to? That sounds pretty good. Yeah.
Tina Dietz [00:01:32]:
So it happens when you, you know, been around and doing the work we do for as long as we have. Right?
Susan Friedmann [00:01:37]:
Exactly. And over the years, I've referred so many authors to you to do audiobooks. I mean, you're my go to person when it comes to audiobooks. Oh, great. I just love the way you work with people. But talking about that, let's focus on audiobooks because I believe they're the hottest way readers are consuming books today. Talk to us about the benefits of turning a nonfiction book into an audiobook. What's it going to do for the author? Doctor.
Tina Dietz [00:02:08]:
Yeah. It really has so many multiple benefits that many times we don't even think about because you think, okay, well, it's just another version of your book. But your book, as you and I know, is never just a book. Your book is a great source of so much content and so much thinking that often on the marketing side of things does not get utilized to the extent nearly that it could be. And I talk to authors all the time and say, if you had the stamina to market your own work and to talk about your own work the way that Stephen Covey did, How many times did that man have to say the seven habits of highly successful people, each of those seven habits? Tens of thousands of times. Your audiobook is no different. It gives you the opportunity to get your message out into the world in so many different ways, that tens of thousands of times in addition to the other versions of your book. So our authors are looking to create larger platforms for themselves to gather more people to them, to have easier time marketing, to stand out in the field of public speaking, to have higher quality marketing assets that they can use in content in many different ways to build courses and so on and so forth.
Tina Dietz [00:03:31]:
And audiobooks can make all of that available to an author.
Susan Friedmann [00:03:36]:
Those benefits are incredible. One thing that concerns authors when we start talking about audiobooks is, well, if I do an audiobook, they're not going to buy the printed book. And I'm like, No. No, I'm not. I believe that I do it myself. I buy the audio And then sometimes I really want the written version, the print version of it. And sometimes it's the hard or the self cover and the ebook because I consume them at all different times. So I don't think it limits authors in any way.
Susan Friedmann [00:04:13]:
Would you agree with that?
Tina Dietz [00:04:14]:
I we see it all the time. Well, audio in general is the most accessible form of media. You can listen when you can't watch. You can listen when you can't read. In our society that is so busy and a little bit time poor in a lot of ways, audiobooks and the popularity of audiobooks is largely attributed to both their durable format and their accessibility. So we see that all the time that one of my favorite things to have authors experience is when they put their Kindle version or their other version of their book on sale, often on Amazon, and they're like, I sold a bunch of audiobooks. That's so weird. Why didn't they just end? Oh, they bought the sale item too.
Tina Dietz [00:04:55]:
It's just the way that our human minds work. We like having multiple versions. So we can get through the book on audio, but then buy the hardcover or the digital version to study from in a different way. Just like you said, you use them different ways. We see that constantly. I mean, besides, those of us who are old enough to remember listening to music on an album, how many different times, how many different versions of the same music have we purchased over the years? I have albums that I've had in vinyl, tape recorder, you know, tapes, CDs, and now digital. Four different times, I have bought that music, and I don't regret it because I love that music. Same thing with books.
Susan Friedmann [00:05:40]:
That's an interesting comparison. I hadn't thought of it that way. But, yes, when you say that, it just makes so much sense. Now another issue that comes up, Tina, and you and I know we've talked about it, is that authors say, well, I want to read the book. Mhmm. Talk to us about that. What are the pros and cons, and what do you recommend to your clients?
Tina Dietz [00:06:03]:
The recommendation that we have for our clients is it needs to be what serves the work most. My company, Twin Flame Studios, is the premier provider of author narrated nonfiction audiobooks in the world, and we do all remote recording. We are the only company in the world that does audiobooks the way that we do it. We invented this process, and we have not a 100% perfected it because there's no such thing, but we're really good at it. But going along with that is understanding that just because it is your book and maybe even your memoir sometimes. If the work and you as part of the work are not served by the process, it's not going to hurt your book to be professionally narrated. Because what sells an audiobook is the quality of the narration 100% of the time, not whether the author narrates it or not. And we see this over and over and over and over again.
Tina Dietz [00:07:02]:
But I will say there's a couple of caveats here because if the narrator doesn't sound like they own the material, like they're really invested in it, if there's not that connection to the material, it's not gonna be great. We saw that with, I believe it was the gifts of imperfection, one of Brene Brown's earlier works. And one of the reasons that they reissued the audiobook in the 10th anniversary of that book because Brene rerecorded the audiobook in her own voice. She had reached a point in her career where people really desired to hear her voice, but part of the issue was that there was such a big disconnect between the quality of the narrator that got chosen and Brene's own voice. We have all kinds of questions that we will ask to discern if you should narrate yourself. And we can go more deeply into that if you want, but there's definitely some questions that we ask about that. And we also in terms of pricing, which is really important because people are investing heavily in their book and their work and their platforms, we really try to keep the pricing very similar. So you never have to make a choice based on whether you're narrating or a professional narrator is narrating, can really serve you and serve the work.
Tina Dietz [00:08:19]:
Having done a little bit of voiceover
Susan Friedmann [00:08:19]:
work, I know how hard it is to keep the consistency, the energy going. It's hard work. And to read, you know, a 200 plus page book, I mean, can take a long time and you really have to know what you're doing. I think the idea of having somebody be the narrator and a well matched narrator for the material could be a very good choice. What's the role of AI now? AI is just creeping up on us with regard to imitating voices. It's also a hot topic at the moment. So talk to us about that and how you use it.
Tina Dietz [00:09:05]:
It's interesting because it's coming. Like, AI is here. It's not anywhere near where it's going to go at some point. So we're really in the infancy of AI, and I'm fascinated by the technology. Mhmm. But I will say specifically in regards to audiobooks, I actually did a deep dive on this topic a couple of months ago because in 2023, AI and audiobooks was a hot topic. And in 2024, it just dropped off the face of the earth. So we did some investigative reporting on that, wrote a whole article that you can find on our blog even to the point where we compared the same voice of a professional narrator as a voice clone versus how he actually did the narration.
Tina Dietz [00:09:50]:
You can really hear the difference between the two and make up your mind based on a single voice of how that works. It's really interesting. And I'm not opposed to AI in terms of using AI for all kinds of things, but I will say that the technology for audiobooks is not there yet. It is just not there yet. The emotion isn't there and the breathing isn't there. And that breathing part is so crucial because not having the breathing, particularly when you're listening to someone for 4, 5, 6 hours, it makes your brain itch. It's the weirdest uncanny valley sensation. So when AI gets to the point where it can emote and it can breathe and it's coming, it's not there yet, that's when we're gonna see a big shift.
Tina Dietz [00:10:38]:
But it's not necessarily bad news. We're not currently using AI in any of our work right now because we don't believe the quality is there. When the quality gets better, we'll revisit that. But I will also say in our research about AI is that people are not buying AI narrated audiobooks. Amazon reported last year that they had 40,000 AI titles go up for audiobooks. But Edison Research, in their research on the audiobook market, says that only 1500 titles were sold in 2023 that were AI narrated. So of all 40,000 books that were published in AI, people only bought 1500 copies out of 40,000 titles. Most of the research out there that's been done says that people aren't wanting this yet.
Tina Dietz [00:11:29]:
It's not there yet.
Susan Friedmann [00:11:31]:
Yeah. I think maybe just for an article, you can get away with it. But you're right. I mean, I've tried it with my own voice, just for little things, and it's so monotonous. It just doesn't have the ups and downs, the pitches, and Life. But all the different terms is the voice. But yes. And I hadn't thought about breath, but you're really right because that's sort of part and parcel too of the emotion, especially when you're changing the emotion
Tina Dietz [00:12:06]:
from sad
Susan Friedmann [00:12:06]:
to happy. And, you know, you're going just as a public speaker. You have to put emotion in your voice to make it interesting to keep people's attention. And if they're not seeing you and they're just hearing you, then even more so. So yeah.
Tina Dietz [00:12:22]:
Definitely even more so. The mechanism neurologically of the voice in the brain is so interesting because when you become a voice in somebody's head, when you listen to an audiobook, and you resonate and you enjoy that voice, that voice will stay in your memory, and it actually stays, you know, part of your whole midbrain setup. It ends up with emotional attachments. You literally, as an author, become a voice in somebody's head. That's a You literally, as an author, become a voice in somebody's head. That's a huge privilege. We want that voice to be intimate and connected with the listener. Until AI gets to the point where it can do that and we are keeping our eye on it, we're going to not utilize it.
Tina Dietz [00:13:05]:
But one of the other nice things about recording your own audiobook if you're doing author narration is that when AI does get to that point, you will have a long enough recording to be able to create a super high quality voice clone if that's something you want to do. And so that's something to think about.
Susan Friedmann [00:13:24]:
I think that's super exciting. Yeah. I'm excited by that prospect, as you said, because we are consuming books that way because of travel. And just when you're making dinner or, you know, doing anything around the house, for instance, I put the audiobook on. Or when I'm driving, I love it when I'm driving. We've always got some detail.
Tina Dietz [00:13:46]:
Me
Susan Friedmann [00:13:46]:
too. It's great. And I love long trips for that too because then you can really get into the story. I like fiction for that, not so much nonfiction, but a nice juicy murder mystery or something.
Tina Dietz [00:13:59]:
Yeah. As long as we don't get freaked out while we're driving, we're good.
Susan Friedmann [00:14:02]:
Yeah. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. It's not the Stephen King type.
Tina Dietz [00:14:06]:
No. No. No. Not in the dark. No.
Susan Friedmann [00:14:09]:
Tina, talk to us about common mistakes that you see authors are making in this arena.
Tina Dietz [00:14:17]:
I love to see authors start thinking about their audiobooks during their first and second drafts of their manuscript. Many times, audiobook is a afterthought. And there's so much advantage to thinking about the audiobook early. A very simple thing that authors can do is do what's called an oral edit, which means you read your draft out loud. And I firmly believe that every author should do this with their book, with their manuscript before sending it to any kind of editing because you will catch stuff you will never catch with your eyeballs. A proofer won't catch with their eyeballs. You will also find places where you don't sound like yourself. And it gives you the opportunity to put more of your natural style into the book, make it more conversational.
Tina Dietz [00:15:10]:
Find those sentences that are a paragraph and a half longer. I wrote that? What? It'll also give you the opportunity to see you'll move yourself. Can I really say that? That's amazing. That gives me another idea. You will inspire yourself in that process. Even if you never actually get to doing an audiobook at some point, you'll have that advantage of using the voice early in your book writing process. So that's one of the biggest mistakes that I see authors make. The other one is on the other side of things.
Tina Dietz [00:15:43]:
And that's where authors kind of get burnt out on getting their book out and published to the world or their audiobook out and published to the world. It's like having a baby in the way that nobody wants to hear, or at least I didn't with either of my kids. I didn't wanna hear when I was in my hospital room. So when do you have in your next one? Right? So that's the last that an author wants to think about. But you do have to think about that you've just birthed this book. Now you need to raise it. And you have to raise that book like you actually do kind of raise a child. You're raising a body of work and getting that body of work and maturing that body of work out into the world.
Tina Dietz [00:16:25]:
And that takes stamina, and it takes practice. That's the other mistake that I see people make the most, for sure. 3rd one, specifically to audiobooks, is trying to do it yourself. Mhmm. 100% of the time, that does not go well.
Susan Friedmann [00:16:41]:
Yeah. No. I was hoping that you would say that because that's sort of, like, instinctively what came to mind is the fact that people think, oh, well, I can record myself and try and do it. And they don't necessarily have the equipment, nor, as you said, the know how of how to do it that it's going to keep people's interest.
Tina Dietz [00:17:02]:
It's true. I mean, we work with so many folks who are well known professional speakers, well known podcasters, people who have been doing voice work for years. But narrating your own audiobook is a different animal. It just is. I mean, you know, some of our clients have spent I can't tell you how many thousands of hours on stages. And they love working with us because they're truly building even another skill set. And audiobooks are far more technical when it comes to the audio quality itself than, say, podcasting. Some of those issues, those settings, they can't be fixed in postproduction.
Tina Dietz [00:17:40]:
Having a setup and having the know how and having the engineering to make sure that the audiobook is gonna be good right from the start is really, really important.
Susan Friedmann [00:17:51]:
And you're reading it verbatim, and you can't suddenly sort of go off on a tangent. Well, this makes me think of something else because you've gotta stick to the script.
Tina Dietz [00:18:00]:
You actually don't have to stick to it a 100%. Okay. No. You I mean, that's generally we don't like it when people go off on tangents because quite honestly, people have spent how many hundreds of hours writing their book. Now you're gonna change it after going through 6 rounds of editing? Stop it. Stop it. Honor your work that you've done. But in terms of being word perfect, that is with nonfiction, certainly, something we check with an author about.
Tina Dietz [00:18:26]:
Because sometimes as we're going, someone will be in a beautiful flow of narration deeply into a groove. And they'll say a word that isn't what's in the script, but it doesn't change the context of the sentence. And those things, we tend to leave in unless we've discussed at the beginning, no, we need this a 100% word perfect. Because there are things like what's called whisper sync with Audible and Amazon, where you would potentially be following along with the Audible and the script at the same time. But small word replacements don't tend to throw that system off. It's not the primary way that people tend to consume those books. It's in the minority.
Susan Friedmann [00:19:08]:
So the whisper sync version, is that a narrator narrating that, or is that done technically?
Tina Dietz [00:19:16]:
It depends on what's available of that particular version. To the best of my knowledge, if you have an Audible version, audible and Amazon are the same company. They're also the same company. Then the audible version will go along with the whisper saying it depends on what you've purchased. You know, there's a lot of it depends on there. But listening along with an AI voice with those titles is, like I said, challenging at best.
Susan Friedmann [00:19:43]:
Yeah. And I love the way you talked about it, which I do too, the similar idea of this isn't your baby. And when people come to me and say, well, will you market my book, which is similar to will you market my audiobook? It's like, the best person to do it is you. I don't have the passion for what you've put into this book, what it means to you. And so the best person to market it is you. It's like, as you said, having a child and saying, okay. No. I'll give it to somebody else to raise, which we wouldn't do that necessarily by choice.
Tina Dietz [00:20:21]:
Right. Exactly. That's why writing a book is such a transformational process because you have to become the person who's willing to shout it from the rooftops. Mhmm. It's such a journey of identity and psychological safety and learning how to use your voice in so many ways. It's a beautiful, beautiful journey. There are very few things. In my experience of being a lifelong entrepreneur, being a therapist, and certainly running this company with audio, developing a platform, a business, and a book, the only thing that I found to be more personally transformational is raising children.
Tina Dietz [00:20:58]:
And honestly, for me, they've been neck and neck. They really are.
Susan Friedmann [00:21:04]:
I loved when you talked about you should be thinking about the book much earlier in the process.
Tina Dietz [00:21:11]:
The audio book. Yes. Mhmm.
Susan Friedmann [00:21:13]:
I find that I'm having conversations with authors once the book is published.
Tina Dietz [00:21:19]:
Yes.
Susan Friedmann [00:21:19]:
And it's like, what else can you do with the book? Well, yes, the ebook. And if you're really serious, because this is how people are consuming books, you need to do an audiobook. I'm sure what's going through listeners' head is ballpark. What kind of budget should they be thinking about when they, let's say, come to you or when they think about doing audiobooks? See, the higher range and the lower range is sort of because I know it's going to vary with everybody you can't remember.
Tina Dietz [00:21:52]:
And the truth is that if anyone listening to this was to go out and research what does it cost to create an audiobook, you would find it goes from 0 money up front, truly, I'm happy to talk about that, all the way to probably 10 to $12,000. So my company is extremely mid market. Our audiobooks tend to range 3 to $5,000, and that is all in. And we are advocates for our authors and their work. We stay very mid market so that we can provide an extremely high level of care for our authors and an extremely high level of service. All of our audiobook directors have 20 plus years in audio. My whole team is based here in the US. We have an amazing culture inside of the company.
Tina Dietz [00:22:44]:
So in order to do that, you have to charge a certain amount of money. But at the same time, we are much less than a lot of the very large audiobook production houses that are used by, say, you know, the big six publishers and whatnot. So we like to remain very accessible and also be able to collaborate with hybrid publishers and independent publishing consultants and whatnot to offer audiobook services to their authors. It really does range tremendously. And, generally, audiobooks are priced the cost of production is going to be, you know, on the length of your book.
Susan Friedmann [00:23:21]:
Yeah. Exactly. Because as I said, a 150 page book is going to be one price versus a 300 page book.
Tina Dietz [00:23:28]:
That's right.
Susan Friedmann [00:23:29]:
Another. That's a great segue into introducing our listeners to and our viewers now into your Twin Flame Studios and the services that you offer.
Tina Dietz [00:23:43]:
Oh, you got a rundown? Okay. Cool. Basically, we work exclusively with nonfiction authors, and we specialize in remote recorded author narration. But we actually can do any nonfiction type of book you want. Our record for number of voices on a single book is 36, all remotely recorded and produced. It was nuts, but it was super fun. Going back to what we were talking about earlier, should you narrate your own book, one option that our authors really love that we've developed is what we call a hybrid version or what I lovingly call a Tony Robbins sandwich because Tony did all of his audiobooks this way. And that is where the author generally will introduce the book in their own voice and wrap up the book in their own voice.
Tina Dietz [00:24:31]:
And then a professional narrator who shares key vocal qualities with the author does the middle. And so that ends up creating a little bit of a best of both worlds situations. It's also how we handle situations where an author may not be able to record their own book either due to time or a medical condition or some other situation that they have. So we're able to work with authors who are neurodivergent. We've had authors who are, visually impaired, folks who had, learning difficulties and whatnot, post concussion syndrome and whatnot. And we're able to accommodate all of that because we have all these different options that we can offer authors to do that. So
Susan Friedmann [00:25:17]:
That's fantastic. Yeah. Can they get ahold of you?
Tina Dietz [00:25:20]:
They can get a hold of us by going to our website, TwinFlamesStudios.com. There's s's everywhere in there. So twin flames studios.com. And you can also look us up. We are on, Facebook. We are on Instagram. We are on LinkedIn. Those are our primary three.
Tina Dietz [00:25:39]:
And you can find both me and the company on those 3 platforms, all of them.
Susan Friedmann [00:25:45]:
That's fantastic. Yes. And we'll put that in the show notes. And I know we're going to be releasing this in time for a webinar that you're going to be doing next week. And I know that this podcast lasts longer than just the week. But for those people who are going to listen to it straight away, just give us a little bit about the webinar, and we'll put the link to register for that
Tina Dietz [00:26:10]:
Sure.
Susan Friedmann [00:26:10]:
In the show notes as well.
Tina Dietz [00:26:12]:
Of course. Yeah. The webinar is all about how to all the ins and outs on audiobook. So some of the things that listeners heard today, there will be a bit of a repeat, but we go into far more depth because I'm a bit of a fire hose, and I want people to be able to make great decisions about what they're doing with their books. And this is a full hour training on the ins and outs of audiobooks, how to get things done, when to do them, who to talk to. And it it's going to be useful for any author, actually fiction or nonfiction. It'll give you a full lay of the land, how to make good decisions about what to do with your book at any stage of the book process. So this is information we want authors to have if you have already written a book, if you're in the middle of writing a book, if you're about to launch your book, or even if you're thinking about writing a book because it's going to be a context that you'll be able to use at any point in the process.
Tina Dietz [00:27:11]:
And, of course, we are recording it and we will be sending out a replay that people will be able to access when they're ready. So we're not going anywhere. We're here for the long haul.
Susan Friedmann [00:27:22]:
I love it. I love it. Good. Thank you so much. And we always end off with our guests leaving our listeners with a golden nugget. What's yours?
Tina Dietz [00:27:34]:
Your voice is your built-in tool that nobody can take away from you. Work your voice and appreciate your voice just like you would exercise any other part of your body and take good care of it. Learn to develop it because it will serve you. And it's part of what makes you completely and entirely unique in the world, just like a thumbprint.
Susan Friedmann [00:28:01]:
No, that's beautiful. Yes. And in public speaking, I mean, that's what you're doing the whole time. And I know speakers who just sort of scream and they don't need a mic and we're like, No, you're going to ruin your voice. You need a mic, you know, not cold drinks, warm drinks. And there are all sorts of different techniques I know, especially before you're speaking so that you can keep talking. I mean, I do webinars or workshops. It could be 2 or 3 hours, and you've got to keep going.
Susan Friedmann [00:28:36]:
That's right. That's fabulous. Well, Tina, really appreciate you sharing your wisdom. I love it. I love audiobooks. I love the services that you offer. And listeners, by the way, if your book isn't selling the way you wanted or expected to, let 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 that you were hoping for.
So go to BookMarketingBrainstorm.com to schedule your free call. And in the meantime, I hope this powerful interview sparks some ideas you can use to sell more books. Until next week, here's wishing you much book and author marketing success.
Check out Tina's upcoming audiobook webinarÂ
