How many times have you lent money to someone in the developed world and never had it repaid? Or worse still, had it repaid begrudgingly? About 2 years ago I came across a website called www.kiva.org and  was immediately taken with the idea. Rather than raise money for charity, these guys actually lend your money to entrepreneurs in developing countries (interest free and fee free) and then collect the repayments which you can then keep or re-lend. It is akin to teaching people how to fish rather than buying them a fish and it works incredibly well.

I started by making three $25 loans ($25 is the maximum to you can lend to any one entrepreneur) and my $25 was grouped with other lenders from all over the world. Contrary to western thinking where the richer you are the lower the credit risk, these poor people all re-paid my loan on time and in full and they even reported to me and the others in my lending group in respect to how their business was going. I was blown away. I have since relent that original $75 over and over and today we have lent money to more than 40 entrepreneurs with not a single default. This is what I call sustainable charity and is at the heart of ‘good’ capitalism.

If you are looking for something great to do this Christmas, check out Kiva.org or click on the banner below. I have actually asked my friends and family to make a loan as my Christmas present this year. They pass 100% of your money along to the entrepreneur and pay their bills solely on donations you elect to make over and above any money you lend. PayPal have also come to the party and waived all fees related to Kiva transactions.

Just a quick update today.

Voice over folks – I am sorry but we can’t accept any more applicants for the royalty share deal at present. We are absolutely overwhelmed with willing participants and we don’t have enough books to go around.

I really want to complete this test project before opening it up again to see how it pans out for all involved.

Again, a big “thank you” to the Voice Over community for your kind support of what we are trying to achieve here. Hudson Audio Publishing is a young company and we are finding our way by trialing new ways of doing business in the publishing space.

I will keep you informed as we progress.

Adam Hudson

I have to say that of all the communities I have been involved with, the Voice Over community from around the world are among the finest. They are extremely willing to work, they are nice people and they seem to take a real  interest in the people they work with as well as their communities.

Just recently one of our readers finished a book for a client of ours who is also a personal friend of mine. The reader really liked the book so I sent a couple of photos of myself and the author so he could put some faces to the names. The photos were taken on a boat here in Australia two weeks ago. It was a steaming hot summers day with not a cloud in the sky. While I was at the gym this morning I got an email back with a photo showing the reader’s lovely house in the snow in Canada – it was MINUS 13 degrees. That’s what I love about this business. Real people coming together in a real way to create digital products that will be bought by people from all over the world. This tactile engagement with people in business is surprisingly rare but a great feeling.

But here’s a something else I love… A couple of hours ago I received another email from professional voice actor Bob Jordan, who together with some 120 voice actors from across the country volunteered to read and record the massive 2,074-page Senate health care reform bill into indexable audio files for the nonpartisan Web site HearTheBill.org. The goal is to make the proposed legislation more accessible to everyone, from interested citizens strapped for time to the visually impaired.

What a great initiative on a very important issue. It is a great reminder that we all have talents and that if we think hard enough, there is always a way to be of service to others.

As you can see from the comments in the post I wrote explaining the new royalty share opportunity for readers, we have been been inundated with willing participants from the voice over community. Those comments are only a fraction of what we received when compared against those who wrote to us directly. I want to acknowledge the voice over community for their willingness and attitude to this idea. It has always been tough for us turning down 49 out of 50 good applicants for jobs we post to the reader community and this may open up some new avenues for all involved. I do however want to take a moment and really be clear on a few points because it is very important to me that we build an open dialogue throughout.

The first is this. We cannot guarantee how any one book is going to sell. We simply don’t know and we haven’t been doing this long enough to give you a depth of data to analyze it. Clearly we believe that every book we handle has a market otherwise we wouldn’t participate on the same basis that we have proposed to you (100% risk with a 30% profit share) but it is largely unknown – but then that is the nature of the publishing business generally. Please, only read these books on the basis that you understand that it is a risk.

Secondly, please take a moment to read the post below this one about the timing of royalty payments. It is important that you understand the cash-flow side.

What we will be doing this side is making sure that the audio book is well presented in terms of price, image, descriptions, keywords and all the finer points of digital distribution, but ultimately it will be the market that decides on the success or otherwise. To date, on all books we have put into the platforms that are now paying out royalties, readers would have recovered their fee in the first or second payment – but it’s early days.

So what’s next?

Courtney in our office is handling this project and she will be in touch with all of you in the next few days that have either written a blog comment or emailed in. She will provide you with a short script to submit your audition and then we will distribute the work to as many readers as we can – however we now have more readers than books.

This first tranche of books are male voice-over roles and I forgot to mention that when I made the original post – however we already have several female voice over books in the pipeline where the authors want to engage on the equity share arrangement – so please submit your interest to Courtney irrespective because we will have work for you too.

Once again, I want to thank the voice over community for their willingness to try this concept. I really hope we can deliver a valuable outcome for you and I want you to know that we don’t take the gift of your time and expertise lightly. I really hope we can make this work for all involved.

One of the most common questions we get is – “Who sets the price of my audio book?” The answer is – you. That being said, one of the conditions that the platforms have is that from time to time they run sales and participants must participate in those sales. At first this seems a bit tough but you must understand that the big platforms, like Audible, spend more than anyone to drive traffic to the store and with that investment they need to control things.

In this months royalty statement cover letter Audible let us know that they are now running TV spots in the US which is great news. Here you have a company that is spending dollars to promote the audio book space. Sure they are doing it to build their business but none-the-less, they are promoting this channel and in my view that’s a great thing for all of us.

I have done a couple of blog posts in the past on how to set a price but the most important one is to look at what others in your category are selling their work for in iTunes and Audible and how long (time wise) is the audio book.

OK – moving on to the timing of royalty payments…

Getting your work from a printed or eBook version and into the platforms for sale and then producing income, even through us, is not a fast process. What I want to focus on though is how long it actually takes to get your first royalty income from the day that you submit the audio files to us (or the day our readers finish them).

Right now, we are running at between 3-5 days to process new audio files and prepare the applications and meta-data for the platforms. So that’s one week. Then it takes the platforms about 8-12 weeks to process the titles that we submit – in other words 2-3 months will pass between when we send the files and applications and when they appear for sale in the stores worldwide.

The next part is the timing of the royalty periods – the first payment can take a while. Here’s why…

The platforms pay quarterly and they only pay on FULL royalty periods. What this means is that if your work goes live in mid-January then you are in the first quarter royalty period which ends on March 31st. Even though you have been there “most” of that royalty period you have not been there for “all” of it so those royalties will accumulate against your first FULL period which will be the April – June (second quarter). You will then get your royalties from mid-January until June 30th. I hope that makes sense?

The last issue is the time it takes from the end of the royalty period to actually getting your money. On average we are receiving the royalty check 8 weeks after the end of the period. So July-Sep royalties 2009 only arrived here in the last week of November 2009. It then takes a week for us to clear the check and turn around and distribute the royalties to our authors because (believe it or not) Audible still has a paper-based system with no portal access.

So, in short, if you were to submit an audio book right now on December 10th 2009, you would most likely not get your first royalty payment until August next year – that’s if the book goes live sometime before the end of the first royalty period in 2010 (which is cutting it fine). The good news is that the first check will be the biggest and then they come regularly every 90 days (or so) after that. It’s a pain but it is just how it works at present.

I actually met with a senior VP of Audible in New York City a few weeks ago and they are working on providing online and real time access to sales reports etc and for me, that day can’t come soon enough.

Further to my post about writing great descriptions here’s a real life example. Here is what was submitted by one of our authors about a spiritual book he has written:

“This book encompasses various aspects of the Avatar, Sathya Sai Baba’s teachings that put us on the Spiritual Path. By judicious repetition and timeless emphasis, consolidation is fostered. Living at a time when the Avatar walks this earth is our great good fortune. Robin Bamber and DR. Rajen Cooppan’s contribution in this book to enhance the Spititual Journey is to be welcomed.”

It’s factual but it needs more benefits to the potential buyer. Why should I listen to this? What will I get from it? Even spiritual books need to be sold. Here’s the description of Dr Wayne Dyer’s latest book “Excuses Be Gone” – a book that I just love by the way. See how well it describes the book. Is it any wonder Dr Dyer is a best selling author!

“Within the pages of this transformational book, Dr. Wayne W. Dyer reveals how to change the self-defeating thinking patterns that have prevented you from living at the highest levels of success, happiness, and health. Even though you may know what to think, actually changing those thinking habits that have been with you since childhood might be somewhat challenging.

If I changed, it would create family dramas . . . I’m too old or too young . . . I’m far too busy and tired . . . I can’t afford the things I truly want . . . It would be very difficult for me to do things differently . . . and I’ve always been this way . . . may all seem to be true, but they’re in fact just excuses. So the business of modifying habituated thinking patterns really comes down to tossing out the same tired old excuses and examining your beliefs in a new and truthful light.

In this groundbreaking work, Wayne presents a compendium of conscious and subconscious crutches employed by virtually everyone, along with ways to cast them aside once and for all. You’ll learn to apply specific questions to any excuse, and then proceed through the steps of a new paradigm. The old, habituated ways of thinking will melt away as you experience the absurdity of hanging on to them.

You’ll ultimately realize that there are no excuses worth defending, ever, even if they’ve always been part of your life—and the joy of releasing them will resonate throughout your very being. When you eliminate the need to explain your shortcomings or failures, you’ll awaken to the life of your dreams.”
If you are stuck on trying to write a description for your book, jump into Audible.com or iTunes and read the descriptions of some of the best sellers in your category. You must learn to sell your work!

I don’t know about you, but I love watching videos about interesting people. Here’s a video that will inspire our Voice Over friends. Creating audio books is such a great space that requires creative talent, a little marketing skill and mostly people working together toward a common goal.

I hope you enjoy it!