audiobook marketing
guide for authors
christa lewis · voice actor · audiobook narrator · coach
10 AudioFile Earphones Awards · SOVAS Voice Arts Award · 2× Audie nominee
Audiobook Marketing for (frazzled) Authors
👣A guide to take you from whaaaaaaat? to ... it's selling!
— start here —
Audio is the fastest-growing corner of publishing.
In 2025, U.S. audiobook sales reached roughly $2.43 billion — up about 9% on the year — with more than 750,000 titles available and a majority of American adults having listened to at least one title in audio.
It’s a growing audience and an exploding format, which means audiobook discoverability is now part of the publishing journey.
In today’s landscape, every great book faces two challenges: being found, and giving a new listener enough confidence to take a chance on it.
That’s the “social proof gap” — reviews, recommendations and other signs that tell us other people have already been here.
Books find listeners in lots of ways — through newsletters, reader communities, podcasts, author cross-promotion, libraries, social media, search, word of mouth, and ads.
The good news is that both findability and social proof are doable.
That’s what this guide is for: to help you get found and get heard, written by an audiobook narrator and voice actor with three decades of experience building and marketing a professional audio brand.
🧘🏼 Your Guide 🧘🏼
Jump ahead to a step
→ 1. Lay the foundation
→ 2. Seed early reviews
→ 3. Pull the discount lever
→ 4. Make clips
→ 5. Ebook-to-audio ripple
→ 6. Ads
→ 7. Grow your audience
→ 8. Reviews & awards
*Note: You don’t have to do all the things.
You decide how deeply you want to delve into each part of the journey.
Keep it simple and give yourself small, incremental goals.
If an offered solution feels cumbersome, skip it and try something else; the important thing is that your book has a path to reach your listeners.
Where are you right now?
Pick the moment that fits your situation.
Click the button on the card to start your journey.
🌱 You're headed into audio — great!
You've decided to produce your book in audio — so let's give the audiobook the best possible shot at finding its listeners.
Most of what makes an audiobook succeed is the same work that underlies the success of any print book — a story people enjoy, and readers who know it exists.
The audio-specific pieces sit on top of that, and they're eminently doable.
This guide walks you through it, one step at a time.
Two things worth dialing in early, and then we'll get into the marketing:
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Choose a voice that's an asset, not an afterthought. Whoever gives your book its voice, that performance is one of the things that's uniquely yours to market later: clips, samples, a listen that feels like an experience. You'll use it in Step 4, and it's worth ensuring it is something you're excited to share.
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Decide whether you will be distributing via Audible or not.
🧭 Production
This guide covers how to market an audiobook. If you are still looking to take your title into audio, my audiobook production process is here and briefly, looks like this:
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We talk.
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You hear your story in my voice.
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There's prep.
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I narrate.
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It's done along with short promo clips you can use to market the finished audiobook.
Planning to narrate it yourself?
I also offer consulting and performance direction for authors.
She consistently honors the text, and honors the writer.
I felt like my piece was in capable hands.
— Tanya Eby
⚙️ Step 1 — Lay the foundation
Before you spend a dollar or a promo code, make sure the page a listener lands on is doing its job. This is vital and determines the return on everything that follows.
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An author website. Give readers an interesting, informative place to find you and explore your work. Start with a clear page with professional cover art, a short description, an audio sample or a link to one, and current purchase links. If you don’t have a website yet, Tertulia for Authors can build one from your ISBN in minutes. Wix is another flexible, easy-to-use option.
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Metadata & categories. Choose the most accurate, specific categories available to you, and write a description that opens with a hook while giving listeners a clear sense of the book. Strong, accurate metadata helps the right listeners find it.
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The cover at thumbnail size. Most people first see your cover the size of a (large-ish) stamp. If the title and author's name aren't legible at that size or the graphics are distorted, correct that before you drive any traffic to it.
*If that's enough for now, bookmark this Guide for later
Desktop: Tap ⌘D / Ctrl+D to save the Guide for next time
Mobile: use your browser menu to save this page 🌱
🧭 Distribution
This guide covers how to market an audiobook. For where it sells, what royalties you keep, and which contracts you sign — some pointers:
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For information to help you choose, visit the Alliance of Independent Authors' Self-Publishing Advice Center — a nonprofit, author-first resource to guide distribution choices.
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For current terms and actual earning percentages, always check the distribution platform directly: ACX, Spotify for Authors, Kobo Writing Life, Author's Republic, Google Play Books, and INAudio set their own terms and keep their own numbers up to date.
⭐ Step 2 — Seed early listener reviews (codes are currency)
Early reviews are a credibility booster. A handful of honest reviews in the first weeks give a new listener the confidence to try a new-to-them book — and they build momentum. Your main tool here is the promo code: promotional copy codes are available through some platforms and distributors.
A few things that may work better than "free audiobook!" offered
up into the aether:
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Give out codes through a giveaway, not a giveaway-away. Codes handed out as something exclusive are a snazzier commodity. Scarcity does the work.
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Build a small review team, the way you'd build an ARC group for an ebook — keeping in mind audiobook reviewers are a different audience than your print/ebook readers. You may need to scan the manuscript (esp. in Non-Fiction) and swap out words like "reader" for "listener"
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Place codes where audio reviewers already gather: reviewer-matching sites like Audiobooks Unleashed and StoryOrigin, and active Facebook communities like Audiobook Addicts (with a regular code-exchange thread) or genre pages such as Aural Fixation for romance. Post in r/audiobooks (on Reddit) and relevant Goodreads groups too.
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Consider BookTube (YouTube book reviewers) for your genre. Some channels reach a lot of subscribers, and a video review lands like a recommendation from a friend rather than an ad. It skews to YA, fantasy, and romance; also, you approach each reviewer through their agent and/or as stated in their review policy.
One practical limit to plan around: Codes are finite — spend them where reviews are likeliest.
*If you'd like a simple number to watch
Aim for 10 honest reviews in the first few months. If you’re moving toward that slowly but steadily, you’re doing enough.
🎧 Find Listeners for early Reviews ⤵
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StoryOrigin — Audiobook review copies, reviewer matching and audiobook group promotions.
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Booksprout — A large ARC/reviewer community that supports audiobook copies and can help you build an ongoing review team.
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Audiobooks Unleashed — Audio-specific: listeners claim audiobook promo codes and leave reviews.
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NetGalley — A larger, more formal review network reaching reviewers, librarians, booksellers and other book advocates.
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Goodreads Audiobooks — Free audiobook communities where authors and narrators can offer review copies and promo codes.
Good – Offer codes to a small circle of trusted listeners and ask for honest reviews when they have time.
Better – Build a tiny review team or ALC (advance listening copy) group and send codes there first.
Best – Try matching sites (like Audiobooks Unleashed or StoryOrigin) and review communities if you enjoy that kind of outreach. If you don’t, you can happily stay at Good or Better.
🏷️ Step 3 — Pull the discount lever (wide distribution and direct sales)
If you distribute wide: use retailer discounts, Chirp submissions, and other time-limited promotions where available.
If you sell direct: use coupons, launch pricing, bundles, and limited-time offers from your own store.
If you are exclusive to Audible: skip ahead to Step 4, because you do not directly control the retail price.
Discounting is one of the highest-return promotional tools in audio and leaves an opening for authors who can afford to be flexible. If you distribute wide, or sell directly, you can do deep, time-limited price drops that put your book in front of deal-hungry listeners:
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Chirp (from the BookBub team) lets you apply for a featured deal at a steep discount (often 50–80% off) for a limited window. For wide audio titles it's one of the single best-value promotions available, and it's especially strong in romance, thriller, and fantasy.
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Strategic discounts (or giveaways) on retailers that permit promotional pricing (Apple Books, Kobo, Google Play) can punch above their weight — heavily discounted titles sometimes crack a store's top ranks purely because the discount created visibility.
The move is "use a limited discount as a visibility event," then let the momentum and any series listen-through carry the value back to sales.
*If you’d like a simple number to watch…
Target: Run 2–4 meaningful discount or giveaway promotions per year for your audiobook.
🧭 Selling direct
If you choose not to distribute via Audible -
there are options and things to think about. The consensus is that selling direct-only rewards authors who already have an established audience (who started out on Audible to grow their audience) — so, it's high-margin, but not easy-mode.
Google Play Books, Kobo, and Spotify accept direct audiobook uploads — no exclusivity,
and depending on the retailer, you can set or recommend your audiobook’s list price. Apple Books generally receives audiobooks through approved distribution partners.
If you sell only from your own website:
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The upside: selling from your own store, you keep a greater percentage of every sale and control everything — price, bundles, the customer relationship.
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The tradeoff: you aren't being surfaced on a retailer's website inside your genre category. Every listener you reach is one you personally reached out to.
How this trail shifts for you:
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Your engine is your own clips, your ads, and your list — not a retailer's discovery.
🎬 Step 4 — Make clips (advantage: audio)
This is the step where the audiobook format shines.
A short narration clip is native, shareable content that costs nothing but attention:
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Short clips (15–60 seconds) of a dramatic moment, a plot twist, or lively multi-voice dialogue convert. A single strong clip on TikTok or Reels can reach lots of people organically, and plenty of indie authors have traced real sales straight back to BookTok.
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The hook is everything. Lead with the most gripping few seconds, not context. Curiosity, not explanation.
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Turn clips into audiograms — a clip paired with a moving waveform and captions — using tools like Headliner, Wavve, Canva, or BookBrush. Bonus placement: Place the audiogram on your own book page, in social posts, and anywhere your retailer or author profile permits video content.
*If you'd like a simple number to watch
Choose one or two places to share clips (for example, your newsletter plus one social platform) and aim to share one clip a month. If that’s happening, you’re using this step well.
If you worked directly with a narrator, this is a natural place to collaborate — the performance is the marketing asset here.
Whether you're Audible-exclusive, distributing wide, or selling direct, Step 4 applies to you.
You may not control every retailer's price, but you do control the audio you share. Clips give every audiobook author something uniquely theirs to market.
If you're Audible-exclusive, this is why Step 3 sent you here: you can't directly control Audible's retail pricing, so your own audio assets become especially useful.
🧭 All paths meet here
Good – Create one strong clip from your audiobook and add it to your website or retailer page.
Better – Share that clip a few times over the next few months in different places (newsletter, social, your author page).
Best – Experiment with different clips or audiograms and notice which ones get the most saves, comments, or clicks—keep doing more of that if it feels fun, and not painful.
🔗 Step 5 — Use the ebook-to-audio ripple
*Kindle + Audible only — skip if your audiobook isn’t available on Audible.
Some committed listeners will pick up a Kindle ebook while it's free or heavily discounted specifically so they can then buy the Audible audiobook at the lower Read & Listen (formerly Whispersync for Voice) upgrade price.
The strategy: run a discounted-ebook promotion (a BookBub feature is the classic engine), and let the audio upgrade ride along behind it. And unlike Step 3’s discounting, this can work for both exclusive and wide titles — as long as the audiobook is available on Audible and paired with the Kindle edition.
*If you’d like a simple number to watch…
Target: Track your usual audiobook sales prior to and then during the ebook promotion and the week after. If audio sales lift above your normal level, the ripple is working.
If this is starting to feel like a lot…
That’s normal. You don’t have to do every step perfectly for readers to find your book.
If you:
– make your book cover arresting
- make your book page clear & inviting,
– gather some early reviews, and
– give listeners a simple way to hear about your next release, you’ve already done the most important work.
You don't have to do everything in this guide. Pick what fits your book, your time and your budget.
🧘🏼 Stressed?
💸 Step 6 — Paid Ads: Start Small
Consider paid ads if they make sense for your budget.
A few principles can help — regardless of which platform happens to be popular at the moment:
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If you want to target audiobook listeners specifically, Meta (Facebook/Instagram) and BookBub Ads offer useful targeting options.
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Know roughly who you’re talking to
→ Start with the book.
What kind of book is it? Who already reads books like this? Think genre, comparable authors/books, tone, themes.
→ Describe that reader in ordinary language.
Something like: Readers who like quirky, funny mysteries with older characters. That's enough to start.
→ Give Meta some clues, then let it help. You can suggest interests or audiences to start with. As the ad runs, Meta learns from who responds and helps find more people like them.
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Start small. Test before you scale. Before putting your budget behind one ad, try a few versions and see what earns attention.
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Track your audiobook sales separately. Tools like ScribeCount can help you see returns by format, so your audiobook results don’t disappear into your overall book sales.
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WWM Reader Reach — If you'd rather hand off this piece, Written Word Media offers managed Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns for eligible books. You still track whether the clicks turn into sales.
*If you’d like a simple number to watch…
Target: ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) tells you how much author revenue comes back for every dollar you spend on advertising. A ROAS of 3.0 means $1 spent generated about $3 in revenue. As a rough guide, below 1.0 means the ad is costing more than it returns; 2.0–3.0+ is a healthier range to aim for.
*NOTE Ad platforms change quickly. Check current options before starting a campaign.
🏹 Try First
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Choose one thing to test.
An image, headline, or opening message. -
Make 2–3 versions.
Change only that one thing. -
Set a small test budget.
Decide what you’re comfortable spending — and stop there. -
See which one gets the clicks.
More clicks means that version did a better job of getting attention. -
Then check your sales. Did audiobook sales rise compared with what you usually see? The version with the most clicks only proves attention. Sales get the final vote.
📬 Step 7 — Grow the audience you already have
#lists
Your email list is the one audience you host — the people you can tell about every new release without an algorithm in the way.
Make it easy to join wherever a reader or listener meets you: in the back matter of every print and ebook edition, on your website, in your clips, and in the final moments of the audiobook itself. Someone who finishes an audiobook has already spent hours inside your world. Give them a clear, effortless way to hear about what comes next.
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Add a track, add a subscriber …
A brief bonus at the end of the audiobook can turn that moment into an invitation. It might point listeners to a simple page where they can sign up for a free first chapter, a bonus scene, or news about the next book.
Meet them at “The End.” It can be as simple as: Hi, this is Author Name. Thanks for listening. To hear the first chapter of my next book, The Title, visit MyWebsite/audio
Keep the web address short, memorable, and easy to understand when spoken aloud.
You do not need to rewrite the audiobook to do this. It is simply an additional end track, and the best way to create it depends on where you are:
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Use smaller promotions to grow your list and sales
Low-cost promotional networks can help seed newsletter growth as well as early sales.
Services such as AuthorsXP, created by author and marketer Amy Vansant, offer access to an established reader audience for considerably less than many large-scale features. They can be
useful for giveaways, review campaigns, and introducing new readers to your work.
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Let the series do some of the work
If you already have several books in a series, consider promoting them together or creating a bundle.
One acquired listener can become a listener across the entire backlist; authors track this as read-through. Audio adds another layer of continuity. A listener who follows a story into the next volume may also follow a voice they have come to know.
A consistent narrator across the series can help preserve that connection, and every new release brings attention back to the books that came before.
*If you'd like a simple number to watch
Glance at your email list once a month. If the number of subscribers is slowly going up — even by a few people — you’re doing what you need to do.
Before recording begins — Add the short invitation to the manuscript now, and include the first chapter of the next book in the narrator’s recording materials.
During production — Ask your narrator to record an author-written bonus message and, where appropriate, the first chapter of the next book as part of the existing session.
Already published — If your distributor permits updated audio, create a brief end track that meets its technical requirements. Your narrator or engineer can produce it so that it matches the finished audiobook.
🥳 Creating demand for the book
Anything that helps readers discover your book can ripple across every format — including audio.
And as readers and listeners find you, give them an easy way to stay connected to you.
Need a little help marketing the print book itself? → Here are four simple places to start.
👀 Boost your List
You can build your audience organically or, pay to give your email list a push.
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AuthorsXP — Weekly Mailing List Builder
→ $55. Genre-specific giveaways; AuthorsXP says authors can add hundreds of subscribers.
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Written Word Media — Subscriber Surge
→ $75. A 60-day genre giveaway designed to attract new readers; participating authors receive the contact information for readers who opted in to their mailing list.
* NOTE These are list-building tools, not guaranteed book sales. Watch what those new subscribers do next.
Good – Add a short invitation at the end of your audiobook that points listeners to a simple page where they can sign up for news about your next book.
Better – Mention that same sign‑up link in the back of your print and ebook editions, and on your website.
Best – Send a friendly email to your list when you have actual news: a new release, a discount, or a bonus scene. You never have to email on a rigid schedule if that doesn’t suit you.
🏆 Step 8 — Reviews and awards
Once your audiobook is available, you can explore professional reviews and/or audiobook awards. You don’t need these for listeners to find you, but they can add to your visibility & reach.
Award Best For Spend
Children / audio quality
Children + YA / major audio-production award
Narrators / producers / ensemble / UK audio
All / premier audiobook award
AU titles / performance + production
Indie / broad / accessible
All / UK / performance + production
Indie / narration + production
Sapphic / narrator performance
Spoken word / narration + storytelling
Indie / small press
Indie / small press / broad
Indie / hybrid / small press
Thriller
Indie / small press
Children + YA
Production-heavy / international
Indie + traditional / broad
Narrator performance / US + CA
Narrator performance / PANA members
Indie / broad
Narration / performance / production
Romance / listener-nominated
FREE
FREE
$
$$
$$
$
FREE
$
$
$$$
$$
$$
$$
FREE
$
$
$$$
$
FREE
FREE
$$
$$
FREE
💸 Note
$ Under about $100
$$ About $100–$249
$$$ $250+
Review Best For Spend
Indie / audio-specific
Specialist audiobook audience
Fiction / indie
Libraries / trade
Indie / professional pull quote
Indie / professional review
Trade visibility / broad
Libraries / broad
Indie / professional review
Indie / small press
LGBTQ+ fiction / M/M romance
Indie / broad
Children + YA
Indie / professional review
FREE
FREE
$
FREE
$$$
$$$
FREE
FREE
$
FREE
💸 Note
$ Under about $100
$$ About $100–$249
$$$ $250+
FREE
FREE
FREE
$$
✨ And sometimes, lovely things just ... happen ... along the way
Some audiobook recognition isn’t something you apply for at all. Reviewers, librarians, readers and industry panels may select audiobooks for awards, lists or special honors on their own.
There’s nothing extra you need or can do. But if your audiobook is reviewed, stocked by libraries or gaining attention, keep an eye out — one of these may find its way to you.
If one happens to turn up, celebrate it & add it to your website, retailer pages & marketing materials.
ALA Listen List — Outstanding Audiobook Narration · AudioBookReviewer Choice Award · Booklist Editors’ Choice / Top of the List — Audiobook · British Book Awards — Audiobook · Goodreads Choice — Audiobook · Kirkus Earphones Award · Libby Book Awards — Audiobook of the Year · Libro.fm NZ Audiobook of the Year · Los Angeles Times — Achievement in Audiobook Production · YALSA Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults
🎧 Tools & resources
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Easy-peasy website builder for Authors: Tertulia for Authors
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Distribution & wide reach: Author's Republic, Voices by INAudio
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Discount promotions: Chirp
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Reviews & reviewer matching: Audiobooks Unleashed, StoryOrigin
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Clips & audiograms: Headliner, Wavve, Canva, Book Brush
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Ads: Meta Ads, BookBub Ads
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Lists & Book Marketing: Written Word Media
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Lists & promo: AuthorsXP
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Keeping Track: ScribeCount
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Website: wix
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Further reading: Written Word Media's 2025 Indie Author's Survey Reedsy's audiobook marketing guide Karen Commins' Audiobook Marketing Cheat Sheet Audio Publishers Association (industry data)
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Community: for tips from authors for authors - FB groups Wide For The Win and/or Marketing Audiobooks Wide
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Audiobook industry news & reviews are at AudiobookRush
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Download the audiobook marketing guide as a PDF → here
You can do any step in this guide yourself — really, you can.
If you’re not sure where to start, pick one step that feels doable this month. When that’s done, come back here and pick the next one.
There's one piece you don't have to figure out alone — the audiobook itself.
If you're choosing a narrator, planning to narrate it yourself, or looking for a partner in recording and production, I'm happy to help.