New Audiobooks - At last

 

This week I have some exciting publishing news to share with you. At least it's exciting for me.

I am happy to report that Apple Books/Draft2Digital Audio have finally gotten around to converting several of my remaining books ebooks into audiobooks - nearly seven months after submitting them. The log jam seems to have broken.

On June 8th Apple released the audiobook version of Passage to Jarpara, a book I had released only in March, so it took them less than three months to convert it.  Then on June 16th, they released The Lost Star's Sea, only six and a half months after I had summitted it. Beggars can't be choosers, so I'll not complain. It runs 33 and 2 minutes hours as an ebook on Apple. Out of curiosity, I looked at the run time on Google - 36 hours 8 minutes. I guess Apple's American narrator talks a little faster than Google's British one - Archie, who is supposed to sound like a 60 year old.

Then, on June 20th, Apple released the audiobook version of The Bright Black Sea, again after submitting it on the first of January 2024. The Apple version of this book runs 30 hours and 50 minutes, while Archie narrates it in 34 hours.

The releases of the The Bright Black Sea and The Lost Star's Sea are a welcome addition to my audiobook offerings, since they are too long for Amazon's auto-narrated program at this time, and until now were only available on Google. It will be good to have them on Apple as well.

With the release of these three books I am only waiting on A Night on Isvalar, Beneath the Lanterns, The Girl on the Kerb, and the Prisoner of Cimlye to be converted. We're getting there, slowly, but I'm beginning to hope, surely.

My Apple sales (at FREE) have been modest compared to my sales on Google, but I was selling a lot more ebooks on Google when the audiobooks were released than I am currently selling ebooks on Apple. The sales of audiobooks, however, have contributed a significant number of sales on Apple and have been growing month by month, so I am happy with the results. I am curious to see how The Bright Black Sea and The Lost Star's Sea do, as it is my understanding that long audiobooks are popular with people who are on the road for hours and days at a time, people like truck drivers. We'll see.

In any event, the release of these audiobooks have renewed my hope that all my books will be available on Apple as audiobooks, someday. Hopefully soon.