Monetizing a podcast: Books, eBooks and Audiobooks

One way to make a few dollars from podcasting is to write and sell a book. This is a form of monetization I’ve explored myself so I’ll share some personal experience and some ideas into how you might be able to step into this form of monetization.

Firstly, a book can have more benefits that a few dollars in your back pocket. Being an ‘author’ can definitely add some cred and help to further establish you as an expert in your field.

Obviously there are limitations with books, right? A book is going to be relatively low cost, so you’d need high volume to make it worthwhile. And it requires you to write… a fuckload! But for me, I’d always wanted to write a book. I made my money back and a little bit of extra cash. That’s a win in my book (pardon the pun).

My own book was a memoir. It chronicled the many mishaps, misfortunes and mistakes I’d made in business and the lessons I learned from them. It was a great fit for my audience as my podcast, Karlosophies, was all about sharing the honest stories behind success by really exploring the ups and downs of the entrepreneurial journey.

Writing a memoir was one of the most gruelling experiences and I procrastinated for a year on getting it published. I shared parts of the process and the struggles on my podcast as I wrote, so my audience were getting insights into what was happening behind the scenes… which also helped to keep me accountable, and probably attributed to decent sales, though I did manage to procrastinate for almost 2 years on publishing the thing!

I’m a massive fan of following a path of least resistance and eventually decided, after researching my options to death, to produce it as an audio book. As a voice over artist of 17 years there were no hurdles around this. I kept it super simple and set it up as a private podcast. (I will do a future podcast episode covering how I did this on my podcast Rock Your Mic Right).

Of course, a memoir might not be for you. And purely publishing as an audiobook may also not be the right fit. There are still plenty of options out there.

You can write a book as an extension of your podcast… taking some of the ideas you explore and providing further information on topic (like I’ve done here — this series of articles is an extension of a podcast episode I recorded on ‘how you can monetise a podcast’). You can create a book of transcripts of your episodes. Books can be educational or for entertainment. The only limit is your imagination.

And you could self publish your own book as an ebook (as simple as creating a word doc and saving it as a PDF) or a legit physical book using services like Amazon or Ingram Spark.

The catalyst for publishing as an audiobook, over an eBook or physical book, was a trip to Melbourne to a conference for aspiring authors in 2017. They shared some stats around audio books being on a rapid incline. Did you know audio book sales were up 24.5% on the previous year in 2018 and are forecast to increase for the foreseeable future.

There are some great examples out there of podcasters who have gone on to write books related to their show and had great success. While digging around I came across this great article featuring a number of podcasts that have created best selling books; including Marc Maron, Dirty John, and Welcome to Night Vale.

Writing a book is not for everyone… it can be a lot of work, for once again, little financial return. But it can also be a fabulous experience. For me, it was transformational. Almost like a metaphorical and literal closing of a chapter.

If it’s not your thing, there may be a better option for you to make some $$$ from your podcast. Here are a few:

• Sponsorship
• Patreon
• Retreats and events
• Online courses
• Memberships
• Coaching, consulting or mentoring
• Public speaking
• Crowdfunding
• Donations
• Affiliate Marketing
• Merchandise
• Podcasting services
• Partnership and branded content

You can read the full epic post covering all these and more, here.

Go listen to more of Karly’s thoughts and insights on podcasting at Rock Your Mic Right and you can find out more about her work at karlynimmo.com.