In this episode we speak with James Adams, founder of audiobook producer BeeAudio, about the role of audiobooks in the publishing industry and what authors can expect when creating their own audiobooks.

1:40 – Can you tell us about your journey to found BeeAudio and the services your team provides?

• It began when a friend of ours suggested I become a narrator because of my accent. I auditioned for another company in town and they gave me a book that day. It was a good fit, but the process seemed expensive and inefficient. I raised the money to try to buy the company and transform it but didn’t succeed, so considered what I’d do with a clean slate.
• I looked at what could be done differently and set up what is now a standard procedure for the industry, creating a virtual organization that allows narrators to work at home with good quality technology. That cut costs down about two-thirds, which forced the rest of the industry to change to keep up.
• We work for most of the major audiobook publishers as well as individuals, providing a full-service. There are skills associated even though there is software involved, and our team makes decisions with authors through our communications software.

12:15 - Can you give us the highlights of how the boom in audiobooks has impacted the publishing industry?

• There are a couple of things. We’ve seen new entrants in the market in companies like Greenleaf that have established customer bases and will continue to grow, and we've also seen venture capitalists who have stepped in and seen an opportunity for consolidation across the industry. There’s been a lot of mergers an acquisitions taking place that, on the one hand, put different groups together, but reduce competition.
• The industry as a whole remains pretty inefficient. There are opportunities to become more cost-effective, like getting rid of brick-and-mortar offices and not hiring salaried employees. (No one at BeeAudio, even me, is salaried.)
• For the future, we could see the narrator (by far the most expensive piece of the puzzle), change to an algorithm model, replicating voices like you often hear in voice-command technology.

20:20 - Do nonfiction or fiction titles make up the bulk of audiobook sales?

• It depends on what the product is. The investment in the audio, whether it has quality control, a strong narrator, etc, make a big difference.
• Fiction does really well across wide genres, but business books do well within nonfiction as well as good biography and personal growth titles.
• The vast majority of the books don’t sell well, and that used to depend on the publisher a lot more. One of the transformations that has occurred is the ability of the author to directly influence how well the book does. Social media makes a huge difference now, and it’s no longer totally up to someone else. The author is active rather than passive.

30:20 - When would it be appropriate, if ever, for an author to narrate their own book?

• Most authors aren’t the best fit to narrate their own audiobook. Very few have the experience of speaking in public or into a microphone, and that is a learned skill like any other.
• We will give authors honest feedback if they want to record themselves, but authors have to get beyond the ego of wanting to narrate their books to focus on sales, making sure you have top-quality narration to create the best audiobook. Many narrators have been developing their speaking skills for their entire careers.
• It’s also important to consider the 3:1 ratio, that for every one hour of finished audio you’ll expect three hours of sitting in the studio. It’s a time commitment, especially if you aren’t used to using your voice that often.

30: 40 – Do you have any parting advice for authors who want to turn their books into audiobooks?

• I’m a believer that every book needs to be available in print, as an ebook, and as an audiobook. Each product has to be cross-marketed. Consumers want to be able to access the book whether they’re in the car, on their Kindle, or curled up in an armchair. Authors shouldn’t restrict how their readers get to them, which makes marketing easier because you’re actually marketing to three different verticals, not just the one.

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About James Adams

James was trained as a reporter in England where he graduated first in the country. He had a long career at the London Sunday Times where he became Managing Editor. He was the CEO of United Press International and was then the founder, Chairman and CEO of iDEFENSE, a cyber-intelligence organization with clients in the intelligence community, the government and Fortune 100 companies. He is President of Hermes Group, an intelligence organization for the 21st century serving nation and market states and currently sits on the Board of 44Doors a mobile marketing solutions company. He is the author of 13 bestselling fiction and non-fiction books with an emphasis on warfare and intelligence. His written work has appeared all over the world in publications ranging from The New York Times to Asahi Shimbun. He is the narrator of around 175 audiobooks, both fiction and non-fiction. He is an enthusiastic rower and fly fisherman and lives with his wife and two daughters in Ashland, Oregon.