Top Trends in Self Publishing

Many of Self Publishings Top Trends right now have to do with audio. Did you know?

For the past couple of years, you’ve probably heard rumors that “audio’s about to explode! Get your books in audio now!” There are plenty of articles about how ACX just might have shot themselves in the foot on that one, though. I don’t think any of us should stop producing our books in audio just because ACX is…not quite kosher. Good thing Findaway and other aggregators are stepping up to fill that hole. You can listen to two awesome 6 Figure Authors podcast episodes about this.

But you probably know all of this already, right? Did you know there’s a couple of other audio-related things happening in the indie world?

Dragon’s been around a while, so you might not have thought about this as a trend. But one of the big things we noticed in 2020 with more people being home, but also wanting to spend more time with their families is that more and more people are using dictation. Of course, you don’t HAVE to use Dragon software. There are plenty of other options out there. Here is a Dragon Expert, Scott Baker talking about Dragon on the Self-Publishing Show. They also had a chat with Danielle Norman on great tips to consider while dictating.

Another future trend is Custom AI Voices. I had a chat with Joanna Penn about this a while back. It’s not quite 100% ready for the world at large yet, but authors who podcast and already have a ton of recording of their voice COULD turn their voice into an AI and “record” their audiobooks with a lot less work. Crazy, right? Joanna, Mark Lefebvre, and others are already working on it! Here’s Joanna’s chat with 6 Figure Authors about this and more.

When you think about it, combining these three ideas together could really explode an author’s career, saving so much time. Dictate your book. Edit it. Send the edited version through the custom AI. Put the audiobook up for sale on multiple platforms! Now, Mark did make some great comments, noting that you wouldn’t want to sell your custom AI audiobook for the same prices you’d sell your professionally acted and produced audiobook. But it might be a great way to get shorter works, side content that’s not part of your main series, and no-longer-performing backlog books up on audio quickly and inexpensively so that you have more money to spend on that professional narrator.