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Your audiobook playing in a stranger’s living room? Crazy, I know.

Your audiobook playing in a stranger’s living room? Crazy, I know.
This entry is part 11 of 33 in the series Audio for Authors

“Alexa, play an audiobook.”

Imagine this scenario.

You’re at a friend’s house and they want to show off their new Alexa Echo speaker. They ask it to play an audiobook.

Your brother’s voice is reading his latest nonfiction.

Right there in your friend’s living room.

It’s not The Twilight Zone.

But close.

Let’s gather up the ingredients to recreate how this possibly happened:

  1. You, dear author friend, create and publish your audiobook.
  2. Your sister pesters everyone she even remotely knows to buy your book.
  3. Same sister (see #2) visits a random friend and friend has new Amazon Echo.
  4. Friend wants to show off–as friends tend to do–and commands Alexa to play an audiobook.
  5. Your book sees the light of day and enters into the eardrums (and probably permanently into the psyche) of strangers.

What’s the hardest step above?

If you haven’t done Step #1 yet, then Step #1 is the hardest.

If you have done Step #1 above, then you might need to adopt a new sister.

Other than those two, it’s up to chance, random number generation, Amazon algorithms, and love.

Oh wait. Did I hear that whisper under your voice? You don’t have your audiobook ready yet? Oh, I’m sorry. You’re disqualified.

Let’s do the new scenario:

  1. You, dear author friend, create and publish your audiobook.

But then it stops there. Because you haven’t done it yet. It doesn’t even matter if you have the coolest sister of all time and if she has friends with new Amazon Echos. Nothing else matters until you do #1.

Yeah, so there we are.

My books are playing in the living rooms of complete strangers (to the shock and amazement of dear sis) and you are, uh, trying to figure out how to get Step #1 done and check your genealogy to see if you’re possibly related to my sister.

Family and Echos aside, how can you get #1 done? It turns out that it’s getting easier and easier. I’ve now done it 4 times and it’s getting even easier. Would you like to know more? Let me know.

Until then, try this: If you have any Alexa device, ask her to read any audiobook. Can’t think of one, here’s one: “Alexa, play audiobook The Secret of Kite Hill.”

Series Navigation<< Looking for Audiobook Reviews? Audiobook Boom5 Reasons Nonfiction Authors Should Hire a Professional Narrator for their Audiobooks >>

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