Like many, you may be considering doing audiobooks part time as a side hustle. That is still the stage that I am in as well, but something important to keep in mind is, even though you get royalties for life…that doesn’t mean that the next book your record will PAY royalties for life.
What I mean is, books only pay royalties if they’re being purchased. And books sell the most when they first come out. The longer a book is on the market, the lower its royalties will sink, typically.
This can be dependent on a lot of things.
- For one thing, is it a really good book? If it’s well-written and well-narrated, people will recommend it to their friends and your gravy train will keep on chugging a little longer
- Is the author still writing? If the author is still coming out with new books, then their older books that you’ve narrated are more likely to draw traffic too. As new readers discover that author because of their new books, they then decide they want to read all the books by that author.
- Is everyone working hard to market? This is not a one-way street. While it’s ideal to work with an author that will market their book by sending emails to their readers, posting on Twitter and FB, etc; it is equally as important that you pull your weight as well….or at least try to. I still don’t have a huge following on social media (I suck at regularly posting and it feels forced when I do), but I’m working on it.
- But most importantly – KEEP NARRATING! YOU may be the next narrator that someone LOVES and then they want to listen to ALL your books! And the more books you have out there, the more likelihood there is that you will narrate a good book, or for a good author, or BOTH, and the royalties will keep on rolling!
Good luck out there!
-Stephanie
