Speaker 1: Are you thinking about publishing audiobooks on Amazon, Audible, and beyond? Then you're going to want to make sure you stay tuned to today's video where we're going to interview the head of Findaway Voices, Will Dagus. This is Self Publishing with Dale, where you'll learn to publish books that sell and build an unstoppable author brand. And if you want to learn more about how to write, publish, and build an author platform, make sure that you hit that little subscribe button, turn the bell notification on so that way you don't miss a single video. Want to give a big shout out to the sponsor here of the channel, Thinkific. If you're thinking about turning your book into an online course, might I recommend you take a look at Thinkific. Start 30 days free on the pro plan when you visit dalelinks.com slash thinkific. In my previous video, we reviewed Findaway Voices, the audiobook distribution platform, and it was my pleasure not too long ago to actually travel up to Cleveland, Ohio, that's just a little bit north of me, to actually visit the headquarters for Findaway. So in this full video series, I've actually interviewed four different people from the Findaway Voices team. Today we're going to have part one of two videos where we're going to be talking to the head of Findaway Voices, Will Dagus. So without any further ado.

Speaker 2: So I'm the head of Findaway Voices. Basically Findaway Voices is a self-publishing platform for audiobooks where you can either create an audiobook if you need one, or if you already have one, you can upload it to 34 distributors, and we make it really easy. I oversee everything that happens with Findaway Voices, so the strategy and the implementation. So if you've had a bad experience with Findaway Voices, it is my fault. I will take personal responsibility for it, and I'm in charge of hearing feedback from authors all day long. We take feedback from the community really seriously, and that helps inform our roadmap and what we're building for authors. We want to be the best thing out there, and you don't get there unless you're listening.

Speaker 1: How much do you charge to do audiobook distribution depending on word count?

Speaker 2: Great question. So when you're just selling your audiobook through Findaway Voices, we don't charge anything up front. It doesn't matter if it's a 10,000-word book or a 200,000-word book. The length doesn't have any impact on that at all. You can upload it to our network completely for free. Where we make money is we take 20% of the royalties. So we collect royalties from all 34 distribution partners we have. Those come in from a lot of different business models and a lot of different ways. We get that pool of money, and you get to keep 80% of it. We take 20%. That's how we stay in business. But there's no up-front fees to be selling a book with Findaway Voices.

Speaker 1: Stellar. So is the narrator free?

Speaker 2: So the narrator is not free. If you're creating an audiobook, there is a charge to do it. But if you've already created the audiobook through some other means, maybe you've self-recorded it, maybe you've worked with a narrator off of our system or from anywhere else, used a studio. It doesn't matter where the audiobook comes from. As long as it's up to spec. We have audio specs, so the audio has to sound good enough to be sold on retailers. As long as it meets those specs, you can upload it for free to us.

Speaker 1: What is the percentage royalty on each of the 34 distribution avenues? I was thinking it was 32, but I just heard 34.

Speaker 2: Well, it's 34. It's going to be 36 and 38 very soon. We're adding some more. This is secret just for this channel. I'm letting some news leak early here, but we're constantly adding more partners and they all have different business models. So this is actually a more complicated answer than maybe you were expecting. But you can imagine a retail sale. I'm paying a bit of money and I get a copy of the license of the book and I get to listen to that book then. It's a simple transaction. They're not all that simple. So yes, Google is 50%, audiobooks.com is 50%, and it's important to note that's 50% of the list price, not the sale price. So you as the author are setting the list price on Findaway Voices for both your retail sales and your library sales. Your library list price is usually two to three times higher than your retail list price because you're giving the permission to circulate that in the library. So you want to get more money from that purchase. So if you set a $10 list price, it doesn't matter if Google Play sells it for $8 or $15, you're getting your royalty paid off that $10 that you set. So that's really powerful. The retailer can discount your book. They're taking a loss in their margin there. You still know what you're going to get paid. So if you're doing marketing campaigns, calculating your ROI on ads, you can really calculate this if you know how many sales you're going to make off that $10. So to get back to this, $10 list price on a retail a la carte sale at Google Play is a 50% royalty rate. That means a $5 royalty. That $5 royalty is what we take the 80-20 split on. So you as the author keep 80% of that $5, which is $4 in your pocket, and Findaway Voices gets $1. That's how the math works. However, so Google and Audiobooks.com are 50%, Apple is 45%, Chirp is 45%. There's a lot of retailers that are at the 45% right now and 50%, but there's subscription partners like Scribd and HiBooks that operate in a pool model. Those are not direct transactions like on Apple Books or Google Play. So those work off a pool model. You're probably familiar with other pool models in the e-book world. Basically, the more your book gets listened to, the more money you get and the proportional share of the pool. There's also library sales that happen on a couple of different models. One a la carte sales on library. So this is your librarian purchasing the book and letting it circulate in their library, curating the catalog. And then there's a paper circulation model where you're actually getting paid. It varies for different partners. You can look up all the details on the distribution agreement in our site if you really want to dive deep. But basically, it's a smaller fee. It's less than a dollar usually unless your book is really long. Every time a library patron listens to your book or downloads it and checks it out. So unlike the pool model, it's not the proportional share of listening. It's just you get paid every time a book is checked out of the library, whether they listen to it or not. The intention of checking out triggers that paper circulation for the library to pay for. We've been seeing a lot of traction with the paper circulation model with indie authors who are able to mobilize their audience and say, hey, listen to my book on the library, your local library. You get to listen for free, and I still get paid every time you listen. It's a really powerful model for direct-to-patron advertising. Wow. Yeah. So to wrap that in a bow, there's a lot of different business models and a lot of different rates. We take care of all of that. We're really transparent about it in our distribution agreement. You do have to go sign up for an account and download the distribution agreement to see it. It has to be behind a login for some contractual reasons with partners. We can't just put it publicly there, but you get to see all the different... What? Right? So you get to see all the different royalty rates, all the breakdown. It's very transparent on how each one, their model's working. And then we gather that money into one big pot for you at the end of the month. We pay every 30 days.

Speaker 1: If I'm non-exclusive to ACX, what should I have in place to safely publish my content to Findaway Voices? So this is anybody that's worried about, say, if they're publishing to ACX non-exclusively, is there any issue with going to Findaway Voices?

Speaker 2: No, none at all. So if you're in a non-exclusive contract, that's exactly what that contract means. It means you can upload that content anywhere you want. Findaway Voices, completely good to upload your content. Now, if you're in an exclusive contract with ACX, we do not break that exclusivity. You have gotten a higher royalty rate to only be on one single platform. Do not upload your book. If you upload your book somewhere else and break your exclusivity, you're breaking your contract with ACX. That's not a good idea. But if you're non-exclusive, that's exactly what that contract is for. It's to give you the freedom to take your audio book and sell it wherever you'd like. Now when you upload it to Findaway Voices, the only thing you need to make sure of is if the book is uploaded to ACX, don't ask us to also send it to ACX, because then you'll run into some problems. We won't be able to do it. You can't upload duplicates to ACX. But if you want to use us for distribution to ACX, that's totally fine. Just know that if your book's already on ACX, don't ask us to send it there again.

Speaker 1: What about the one, and you and I had a little bit of a private conversation when it comes to Apple. There is distribution to Apple through, say, ACX, and there's also through Findaway Voices. Is there issues with duplicate publishing through that?

Speaker 2: So there's no problem with sending your book both places to Apple. You're going to make, non-exclusively, a 25% royalty rate at ACX, and that's going to include your Apple sales. But we have a direct relationship with Apple, so if you send it to Apple through us, you're going to make a 45% royalty rate on those sales, which 45% is higher than 25%. That's a good deal. And there will be a duplicate book for just a couple days, and then it'll get taken down. They will favor the book from Findaway Voices. They know that you're going to make more money off that one, and they have more control over discounting, and there's a lot of benefits for your book coming through Findaway Voices. So you absolutely, if you're non-exclusive and you love Apple sales, you absolutely should check the box for Apple books on Findaway Voices when you upload.