Under The Hood Changes

During the next week or two I'll be making some under the hood changes in my publishing arrangements. These changes are sparked by my discovery that Apple is now offering to convert ebooks into auto-narrated audiobooks, for free. My experience with these auto-generated audiobooks on Google has been entirely positive. Indeed, more than 1/3 of my book sales now come from audiobooks and their ratings match the ebook versions. So why not?

At the beginning of my publishing venture, I used two venders; Smashwords which also distributes my books to Apple, B & N, and Kobo, and Amazon. Some five years ago I added Google to my list. And when Draft2Digital bought out Smashwords, I added Draft2Digital, mostly as place holder against whatever developed with that purchase. At the present, I only offer my books via D2D in the two European ebook stores D2D serves. However, when I discovered that Apple was offering to convert ebooks to audiobooks, I decided that I needed to make some changes.

I always thought that, Apple being Apple, I would need to own a Mac computer and use their word processor program Pages, to publish directly to the Apple store, and since I could sell there via Smashwords, I never gave it another thought. Until now. With the lure of audiobooks on Apple, I investigated what I needed to do. Did I really need to own a Mac to list my books directly with Apple? As it turns out, no. You can upload ePUB files directly to the Apple store, which is what I do for Google. Suddenly, my prospects looked bright. I went and created new generic  ePUB versions of my books as my Google versions had "Google Version" on the copyright page. However, when I looked into audio books further, I discovered that these conversions are done through some trusted partners... Long story short, do your research thoroughly. 

Luckily, Draft2Digital was the prime trusted partner. I will need to look into it further, but I believe all I will have to do is to list my Apple editions through D2D to be able to take advantage of the audiobook feature. 

As eager as I am to do this, I suppose that I need to take a breath, and do things step-by-step. The first step will be to pull all my books from every Smashwords vender save Smashwords itself. I will do that this Friday. Then I  will relist them to every outlet D2D distributes to on Monday just to give the vendors time to drop the Smashwords editions before adding the 2D2 versions. I don't know if this is necessary - Apple now lists D2D as my publisher in the book data, but just to be on the safe side, I'll give them some time to avoid any confusion. Hopefully, once I have my books on Apple with D2D, I can get them converted. I'll keep you informed. 

I don't know what to expect from Apple audiobooks. They only offer 3 male and 3  female narrator voices, compared to Google's a dozen plus each, and one of those is a very serious voice for non-fiction. They have one voice for fiction & romance, and one for SF and fantasy. I like the fiction and romance voice slightly better, but I much prefer my choice with Google. But beggars can't be chooser. As for sales, who knows? Google dwarfs my ebook sales on Apple, but, on the other hand, Apple iPhones have 50% of the US market, and a lot of people read books and audiobooks on their phones or in the car on their commutes via their phones. Apple customers tend to be more well heeled than Android customers, so the free price of my audiobooks may not be all that big a draw on Apple. Still, who knows? I intend to find out.

However, nothing is a done deal at the moment. I'll update you next week on how things are going. If all goes well, you'll soon be able to listen to my stories on your iPhone or iPad. Stay turned.