November 20, 2020

Hello, BFFs! (that’s BookFunnel Fans if you’re just joining us)

Damon here. If we haven’t met, I’m the creator of BookFunnel and still happily the lead engineer. Five years at the keyboard (and counting!), I work on BookFunnel every day to make it better for authors and readers alike.

I started this fun little journey we call BookFunnel just over five years ago with one goal: to help indies deliver ebooks directly to readers. That was a lot harder back then, in the pre-BookFunnel days of yore. The dark days. We don’t speak of those days. Except where I just did.

Less than a week after opening our doors, we received our first official feature request: direct sales delivery. The day after, we got our second feature request: audiobooks.

We added direct sales delivery a few years back. It took a while to get there (we had lots of other stuff to tackle first), but we built it… eventually! And three years later, over 1.5 million ebooks have been sold by indies and delivered by BookFunnel. Hot damn! Those aren’t free books, y’all. Those are real readers paying real money.

But… audiobooks? That was a much bigger thing. For a long time, it seemed impossible that we could ever build that. “Audiobooks are huge!”, “Indies aren’t doing audiobooks!”, “That’s too expensive!”, “There must be more than this provincial life.”

While the world of indie audiobooks was blowing up, we started quietly (sometimes not so quietly) working on doing what we do best: giving indie authors power with their content.

The BookFunnel of audiobooks

As audiobooks continued their rise, the same questions kept coming up over and over:

“How can I deliver audiobook sales directly from my website?”

“How can I use audio as a newsletter incentive?”

“How do I send an ARC of my audiobook?”

“Where, oh where, is the BookFunnel of audiobooks?!“

Five years ago, we changed how ebooks are delivered and made all of those things possible. Now, we’re doing the same with audiobooks. We’re happy to announce that we are the BookFunnel of audiobooks.

We’ve been working on audiobook delivery for just over a year, and we’ve been beta testing with select authors and readers for months. Today, we’re launching audiobooks as an open beta, and you’re invited! If you’re on a Mid-List plan or above and want to help us beta test audiobook delivery, just ask us! Send an email and we’ll add audiobook delivery to your BookFunnel account for free during the beta period. Full pricing and plans will be announced soon.

(UPDATE: We’re out of beta)

What can I do with an audiobook?

Whatever you want! Every current BookFunnel feature can be used to send your audiobook to readers. Anything you can imagine doing with your existing BookFunnel account and ebooks, you can now do with audiobooks.

• Send an ARC campaign? ✅
• Set up a download page? ✅
• Gift an audiobook to a reader? ✅
• Deliver direct sales of audiobooks? ✅
• Create unique codes for audiobooks? ✅
• Use an audiobook as a reader magnet? ✅
• Send Patreon subscribers an audiobook? ✅

BookFunnel already does it all for your ebooks. Now, we do it for your audiobooks, too!

Why a BETA?

Because we’re not quite ready to open it up to the whole world, and we want to make sure our existing authors get priority access. Also, we haven’t gotten all of the billing pieces in place yet.

So, if you’re ready to send audiobooks to readers (and you’re currently subscribed to a Mid-List plan or higher), join the beta and enjoy free audiobook delivery during the beta period. Which brings us to your next question…

(UPDATE: We’re out of beta)

How much will audiobook delivery cost?

When we release this for really-real, audiobooks will be a separate plan that you can add onto any existing Mid-List or higher account. Like our author plans, you’ll be able to pay monthly or yearly (for a discount), and we’ll likely have three plans to choose from:

• $10 per month This plan should be perfect for individual authors with 1-3 pen names, an ARC team, some free audiobook promotions, and an audiobook store. 90% of our audiobook beta authors will fit comfortably in this plan.*
• $25 per month This higher-volume plan should cover every individual author who is delivering audiobooks to their ARC team, offering freebies to subscribers, and driving a lot of traffic to their audiobook store.
• $50 per month This high-volume plan is for publishers and authors with multiple pen names and very active audio promotions and online sales.

The exact terms for each plan will be announced when we launch audiobooks.

(UPDATE: We’ve launched audiobook pricing)

But, you know, we’re BookFunnel! We’ve always been affordable, and we haven’t raised our prices in… (checks notes)… ever. We’ve never raised our prices, not in five years! We’re not about to start overcharging you guys now.

BookFunnel is built by authors, and we want to make sure that what we do is affordable for every author, no matter where you are in your author journey. If you’ve reached the next level, or you’re reaching for it, and you’re ready for audiobooks, we’re ready for you.

The BookFunnel of audiobooks is here.

*Plan descriptions updated March 2023

Don’t miss a post!

Follow the BookFunnel Blog and we’ll notify you when we have a new post.