Authors Direct Audiobooks and Giveaway Codes | The Findaway Voices Advantage

About this video

Dale Roberts interviews Findaway Voices audiobook coordinator Sawyer Dillard about two features: Authors Direct giveaway codes and the Authors Direct storefront. Dillard says a common myth is that audiobooks are only accessible to publishers, when individuals can produce them, and advises beginners to stay within budget, citing a narrator range of $150 to $200 per finished hour in the transcript and warning against overspending on a first or second production. He mentions Voices Share as an option that cuts production cost in half in exchange for splitting royalties with the narrator, plus bootstrapping ideas such as Kickstarter or asking local people when the budget is very low. Giveaway codes have no monetary value: a listener redeems a code on the Authors Direct website with an email address, gets an account and temporary password, downloads the iOS or Android app, and finds the book waiting there. Authors Direct itself does not support reviews, so Dillard suggests directing listeners to retailers that allow reviews without a purchase. Separately, the Authors Direct store lets authors sell from their own storefront, set their own price, and have customers listen in the same app, avoiding zip-file sideloading. The transcript describes an 85% royalty rate for Authors Direct, with Findaway Voices taking 20% of the royalties it collects on the author’s behalf. Dillard says the program had been in beta for about a year at the time of recording.

Key takeaways

• Authors Direct giveaway codes let listeners redeem a free audiobook copy via the Authors Direct website and app, and the codes themselves have no monetary value
• Authors Direct does not support reviews in its app, so the interview suggests sending listeners to other retailers that accept reviews without a purchase
• Beginners are advised to stay within budget for narration, with the transcript citing $150-$200 per finished hour as a workable range
• Voices Share is presented as cutting audiobook production cost in half by splitting royalties with the narrator
• The Authors Direct storefront lets authors set their own price and sell direct, described in the transcript with an 85% royalty rate before Findaway Voices’ 20% share of collected royalties

Episode details: published November 3, 2019 · 7:02 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dale L. Roberts’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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