Let’s talk about what to do with the About the Author part of your book.

First of all, I hope that you have an about the author in your book and your print and or ebook editions of the book, because this is an important part of building your author platform. You should assume that if people have gotten to the end of your audiobook that they’ve enjoyed it, they’ve stayed with it, and they probably would like to know a little bit more about you. Why deprive them of that?

I have heard from others and I’ve noticed it myself when listening to audiobooks that many people choose to not include their About the Author in the audiobook edition. And this is a decision that I don’t really understand. Because, again, if your listeners have stayed with you all the way through your audio book, there’s a really good chance that they’ve enjoyed it, and would probably like to know more about you.

So let’s talk about what to include in that About the Author in your print or ebook editions. And it may be fine as is. But I want to encourage you in your audiobook edition to take a look at it from an audio perspective and consider possible changes if they’re appropriate.

So the first one is including your website. This, of course, should be your central hub, your primary place where you want to drive traffic. And one of the main reasons for that is if you include things such as your social media links – which can be fine, especially in an E book. – but in an audio book, you know, these are links that that could potentially become obsolete. You may decide that you need to change your handle or you know, build a different page on Facebook or Instagram or whatever. And you’re not going to be updating your audio book to keep up with that change. It’s much easier to update a print or an ebook edition in that regard. With an audio book, you want to make sure that information is going to stay current. So if you only include your website, that gives you just one place where you need to maintain your updated information about social media platforms. And there may be new platforms that come up that you decide to do or are going to be really important to you that you want to stay active on. Well, if you have it on your website, your listeners will always be able to find you.

Another thing that you can and should include in your About the Author, is other books that you have published. Include those because they may be looking for them, even if they’re not in audio yet – that’s no reason to not let them know about them. They may want to get the print or the ebook edition.

Similarly, let them know if your audio book is just one of the formats that you have of this book. For example, if you have a print or ebook edition of this book, then you want to let them know about that as well. So many times, there will be audiobook listeners who decide that they’ve loved the book so much they’d like to get the print book or the ebook as well. So you want to let them know and likewise they may have family members or friends who maybe don’t listen to audiobooks, but they know they love that book and so they have an easier way to share that with the people that they care about.

Include your website, including other books that you have published. You can also mention other books that are on the way, that’s perfectly fine as well. And of course, you’ll keep your website up to date on all that information. So by inviting them to your website, you’ll always be able to keep them current on what’s up with you.

Now, one of the cool things that you can offer and many people don’t consider this, is you could offer them a special bonus or a special gift. For example, as a thank you for listening to the audiobook, invite them to your website to collect a gift or bonus. You could actually put a special link on there if you choose. If you want to do something specific for your audiobook listeners, then there are certainly easy ways to set that up. And you could create for example, a separate landing page on your website for that. Use a bit.ly link to direct them to it. Or even better for the branding of your website is just make it real easy like the name of your website.com/audio, something like that, where you’re giving them a special gift, you might hide that audio page for others. In other words, on your website, you do not put a link in your menu to that audio page. So it would be easy to find for your audiobook people, but not necessarily for anyone else. But on your audio book page, you want to make sure you have links back to the rest of your site where you want your listeners to take action to reengage with you.

That’s a big part of what this is all about is when, as listeners, when we find authors that we really love an author’s content, we want to be able to continue to engage with them. We want to know about their next books that are coming out. We want to know what they’re up to. We want to follow them. So the goal here from the author side of things, is MAKE THAT EASY. Don’t make it hard for them to find you. I have actually had that experience as a listener, where I’ve been really interested in an author. And it is incredibly difficult to find how to reconnect with them. So I want to encourage you to make it easy and provide great information.

The other thing about providing some kind of bonus is, you know, we all love free things or even, you know, just to feel special. As a special thank you. If you offer them some kind of gift that’s related to your audio book that would be fitting for the audience for that audio book, then you’ve done a really nice thing for your listeners, and created a greater reason for them to come and visit you and stay with you.

Some examples of things that you might offer as a special bonus include:

• You may have a lead magnet on your website, especially if you’re a nonfiction author. That, in itself, if it’s already established can be a great way to just drive your listeners to your lead magnet.
• Another possibility both for fiction and nonfiction authors would be let’s say that you blog, and maybe you have a blog post, that is maybe backstory, or research that you did. If you do, for example, historical fiction. You’ve done some research and maybe you’re sharing some of this related content. That’s a great kind of bonus material that’s already existing. It’s not something extra you have to create.
• If, for example, you have, let’s say a book that’s about the healing arts, you may want to offer a special meditation, that kind of thing, a guided meditation that’s available on your website, and your audiobook producer should be able to help you to create that.

So that’s it for now on About the Author. I want to encourage you to make sure that you include your About the Author when your audiobook is being produced, and actively invite your listeners to stay with you. If you have any questions about this, reach out to us. We love talking about this sort of thing and helping authors to succeed. 415-559-9273 or PAV at ProAudioVoices.com.