Get Into the Bedrooms & Bathrooms of Your Perfect Customer

Paul Colligan [00:00:00]: And then the audiobook game became interesting. And then the podcast work gave us the backbone, which led to the AI of this. So this is a progression, this is a solid progression of that same content. Some of you were with us from day one, and you're probably going to email us and say, hey, that book I did ten years ago, can I release the audiobook version of that? Because that's the next step in the evolution. Mike Koenigs [00:00:21]: There's a lot of nuance to recording an audiobook, but it, I'd say 95% of the complexity or more is taken away when you don't have to do it. Paul Colligan [00:00:32]: And so to get a sample of you reading the book in your, you reading the book style is very viable. And you know, that's where we get the breaths. You know, that's where we get the natural nuances, that's where we get the base, that's where we get all that stuff to the audience. There's no pressure, nothing happens. If you want to change things later, you can. Mike Koenigs [00:00:51]: The other thing that happens is the audio gets sweetened. So it's as though it's gone through effects. And it really does sound good, but it doesn't make mistakes. And one thing that can happen is you can determine if you want it to retain your own colloquial or not. I think the most important thing I've done from a business perspective, besides having great partners in my life, is writing books. And one of the things that Paul Colligan and I are here to talk about today. Hi, Mister Paul Collagon. Paul Colligan [00:01:38]: Hey, Mister Mike. Paul Colligan [00:01:40]: Audiobooks. We love audiobooks. And first of all, we've got some exciting things to share statistically. And we're really going to talk about AI audiobooks. And they are mind bogglingly good. When they're done right, we're going to talk about creating audiobooks that help you grow your business. So first of all, some interesting little stats. Paul, you and I agree that audiobooks are big and getting bigger. Mike Koenigs [00:02:05]: I don't know exactly what all the stats and the numbers are, but they're phenomenal. I know you've got a couple for us. Take it away. Paul Colligan [00:02:12]: Well, 60% of high value readers prefer audiobooks. Voices.com, comma, the audio industry, a whole bunch of stuff. This one is really, really interesting. They turned on audiobooks for Spotify premium. They just turn it on. Not much hullabaloo, not much attention. 25%, bam. Engaged. Paul Colligan [00:02:31]: That's music, podcasts and audiobooks. And then what's interesting is the listeners are 2.5 hours longer on the app. So they're not just listening to what Mike's voice sounds like. They're engaging for hours, just 14 days after starting. Mike Koenigs [00:02:45]: Okay, so I assume today we're going to be talking about how you get your audiobook on Spotify, too. Paul Colligan [00:02:49]: Absolutely. Mike Koenigs [00:02:50]: Okay. Okay, good. Paul Colligan [00:02:51]: Everywhere else. And then this one I love, ma'am. So, 53% listed in an audiobook, up from 45% 2022. So that's fascinating. I mean, that's a huge jump. But this is post-pandemic. We were all listening to audiobooks when we were stuck at home. Now that we're out partying again, we're still listening to more audiobooks, and then 53% read more with audiobooks. Paul Colligan [00:03:11]: So high audio routines. Mike Koenigs [00:03:15]: Yes, I know for myself, like, I consume probably an hour and a half of content every day, and I have it on my phone. It's how I do my walks, it's how I do my exercise. I've always got some sort of learning going on in the background, and I'm consuming at 1.75 times, which means getting a lot more information a lot faster, and I would say with very few exceptions. So, um, in the rooms we're in together. So that would be a strategic coach, genius network. Abundance 360 Eo Ypo. Go. Abundance. Mike Koenigs [00:03:52]: High value business owner type groups. Everyone says, can I have your audiobook? Or is there an audiobook? And then second to that is actually kindle. And look, I love physical books. I still use them. I give them away. The latest book, AI accelerator, has been selling like hotcakes. And that's one of the things we'll give away at the end of this is we'll actually give everyone a copy of the AI accelerator audiobook, too. So let's wait a minute. Paul Colligan [00:04:23]: You can give away an audiobook, Mike, you can give away an audiobook as a way to entice your audience for more. Mike Koenigs [00:04:30]: It's not just the entice. Here's probably, from my point of view. People who consume audiobooks, um, when they talk to me, they will say, uh, I'll have people who will go straight from, I listened to your audiobook, and I called up, and I knew I wanted to do business with you. And that's a big ticket sale. It's a six figure sale. So, um, between podcasts and audiobooks, I think they're the two most important media types to use today for a real, uh, business audience. So, um, and that comes from practical experience, talking to people and seeing the results myself. So I think that's a big part of what we're going to talk about besides the fact that here's how we can make the production easier, too. Mike Koenigs [00:05:15]: Go ahead. Paul Colligan [00:05:16]: Well, it's an industry standard now, Mike. They're calling it audio routines. People are now having audio routines as part of their life. And the audio routine is some podcasts, some audiobooks. And here's the thing. Don't choose. Do both. Paul Colligan [00:05:29]: Yeah, Mike, there's a problem. Paul Colligan [00:05:31]: Mike, what's the problem with audiobooks? Mike Koenigs [00:05:33]: Recording them. Mike Koenigs [00:05:34]: So, yeah. Mike Koenigs [00:05:35]: Okay, here, I'll frame this up. So I've recorded a bunch of my audiobooks until the last few, which we use AI to do. And so the typical routine is you have to hire an engineer. Most people end up traveling, and then you start reading your book and you have someone telling you to stop and redo that. Stop, redo that. And you find out really quickly, unless you are a professional speaker, just how badly you read it can be incredibly frustrating. And if you do it right, you're going to be in an audio booth, which means you're going to, if you don't like small enclosed spaces that have dead audio in them. And if you haven't done that before, I would say you're in for a surprise. Mike Koenigs [00:06:21]: They're very often very claustrophobic. You have to take a lot of breaks and it is not uncommon for the process to take two to four days. So it's a week out of your business life, a week of losing money, more often than not, travel and an incredibly frustrating experience unless you're a professional speaker. How about you? What's been your experience from that point of view? Paul Colligan [00:06:40]: I've never done an audiobook because I didn't want to go through this. And this is a guy who likes to podcast. This is a guy who likes to talk. This is a guy who has access to voice booths. That whole thing, that three or four days is just life sucking and life draining. And that's why I haven't done an audiobook to this point. Mike Koenigs [00:06:55]: I didn't know that, Paul. I actually did not know that walking into this. Okay, well, here's the big idea and what we're going to share with you today is, and first, a little backstory. A while ago when Zach, my son, started traveling with me and we started talking about this, I would always come up and I'd have some artificial voice actors and I'd do audio demos from stage. And I had people come up and say, hey, do you think you could do an audiobook for me? And I'm like, I don't really know. And that wound up turning into the business that we have today because Paul took it over and scaled it. So, full disclosure. Yes. Mike Koenigs [00:07:36]: We're going to be talking about a service that we built as a result of this, but we're going to answer every question you could possibly have about doing audiobooks with AI as the backbone. And we're going to do some samples for you in a second, but also. Paul Colligan [00:07:53]: Expand the mind a little bit. I want to be really clear that this isn't spending three weeks, three days in a booth, putting something on audibly. This is much, much bigger than that. We'll chat about that. Ooh, the origin story. Mike Koenigs [00:08:07]: Okay, so here's the backstory. Paul and I originally met, it's got to be dang near 20 years ago now. Do you remember where it was first? Was it? Paul Colligan [00:08:17]: Oh, I remember, dude. I remember. It was a Joe Polish event. We're in line. And it was the rich carpet thing. It was when they had the satellite feed with Branson. Yeah. And I'm like, that's Mike, that video guy. Paul Colligan [00:08:32]: And you're like, that's Paul, that podcast guy. And then we went out and. And we had Italian food at some strip mall in Phoenix, Arizona. And that's fine dining right there. Yeah. Mike Koenigs [00:08:43]: Oh, yeah. Meatballs in love, which is also my favorite band. Yeah. Oh, hell yeah. We should do a little song about that. Maybe we'll end this with meatballs and love a song. I've got an idea. Paul. Mike Koenigs [00:08:57]: All right, so here's what I liked right away about Paul is he's a big dreamer and he's a getter doner, and he's an iterator. So that means, like, he's super fun because you can have an idea and he'll say, and I know how to make it better, and then it goes back and forth. So Paul, very naturally, has an improv soul and loves to make things. And that's one of the things, I think, that's kept us together as friends all these years. We've wound up creating a product that was an author, expert marketing machine. So back in the day when Amazon was brand new and you could start self publishing, we figured out how to hack it and turn that into an entire product and an entire course that eventually even evolved into publishing and profit. But that was an amazing product where we helped hundreds of people write books, publish books, become best selling authors. And it was because Paul figured out how to hack the system, tweak the system, and our combined skills of technical marketing, storytelling and training really turned into, I think, a real transformational business. Mike Koenigs [00:10:08]: And we've always been in love, ever since books together. Is there anything else? I love your story. Paul Colligan [00:10:18]: Okay, well, I do have to throw one thing though. Let's talk about the progression of this just a little bit because sure, it made sense to print and kindle books when we started this. And then the audiobook game became interesting and then the podcast work gave us the backbone which led to the AI of this. So this is a progression, this is a solid progression of that same content. Some of you were with us from day one and you're probably going to email us and say, hey, that book I did ten years ago, can I release the audiobook version of that? Because that's the next step in the evolution. And the answer is yes. Yes. Mike Koenigs [00:10:53]: And it takes about ten minutes of your time. That's the best part of this that we should have brought up a little bit earlier. So an investment of ten minutes and you're going to ask, okay, well, what does it sound like, what's it like? And you got a whole bunch of questions. So part of our interview today, our conversation that Paul and I are going to have, is we want to get you exposed to this world and tell you what works, what doesn't work. But I think the best way to begin is let's play some examples. So we're gonna. Okay, well, it looks like we're gonna play a little bit of punch the elephant, which is one of my favorite books I wrote. It's a sales process. Mike Koenigs [00:11:28]: So here it is. That's why Reagan Archibald was able to close almost a quarter of a million dollars in new business before we had our first coaching session. A few weeks later, he got on stage and closed $200,000 in sales with an offer we created. Okay, not too bad. Not too bad. Paul Colligan [00:11:45]: Sure sounded like you, Mike. Mike Koenigs [00:11:47]: It did. It's a little bit upbeat for sure, but this is Krista Mashore and listen to her. So this is a female voice. What I think the thing to pay attention to is the nuance in this chapter. Krista AI [00:12:01]: I'll tell you exactly how to put the pieces together to get there. One thing I won't talk about is your tactical or strategic content. My expertise has been real estate. Mike Koenigs [00:12:12]: Pretty, pretty good. This one is really impressive too. Anything you want to add to that last one? Paul Colligan [00:12:18]: Well, Krista, if you hit rewind when you watch this video, you'll actually hear Krista's AI take a breath. That gets captured in this AI process. And it's really obvious in this one. And it just doesn't sound fake. Mike Koenigs [00:12:30]: No, you're absolutely right. I'm blown away at how nuanced it is. And I think, as you hear these, when pursuing total fulfillment in life, it's. Ai Audio Speaker [00:12:39]: Not enough to just solve your money problems. Now, don't get me wrong. Having money is great. I've never met anybody who complained about having too much of it. Mike Koenigs [00:12:48]: Okay, that was great. And what's also awesome is most people who are not professional speakers make several mistakes. Like, the cloned version of their voice is actually better sounding and more natural sounding because you don't realize just how many mistakes and breaks you have in your normal cadence. And audiobooks obviously don't have that problem. So here's Aaron Markham. Anything about him before we begin? Paul Colligan [00:13:20]: Well, this one's fun because this is the beginning of Aaron Markham's audiobook. And note, who wrote the foreword to Aaron Markham's audiobook? Mike Koenigs Ai Voice [00:13:27]: Oh, entrez, thrive, the entrepreneur's eight laws to accelerate financial freedom while creating a good life. Written and narrated by me, Aaron Markham. You're about to meet an amazing entrepreneur who's dealt with the downs and ups of building, growing, and selling. That's right. So I wrote the forward, but AI Mike did the voiceover. Paul Colligan [00:13:51]: And the reason that Mike doesn't remember this is because I think I texted you really quickly permission to use your voice. And done. Mike Koenigs [00:14:00]: I'm like, you smart Sob, Paul Khan. Paul Colligan [00:14:04]: Now, this gal, this one. This one's so much fun. You will learn as you go deeper in this world. Sometimes legal things happen and things get really interesting. And the official version of her book was having issues, even though she owned it. And so she re-recorded the book and she added a new chapter. And this is the new content from the new rerecord. Mike Koenigs [00:14:30]: And I want to add one other thing. She has a very distinctive accent because she's French Canadian. And Paul Colligan [00:14:40]: We caught it. Mike Koenigs [00:14:41]: Actually, I like her, so I really love Lys. Okay. And I love her AI voice. This map refer to the diagrams. At the end of this chapter is the model upon which I based my work. It represents the way I look at the spiritual, human evolutionary process. And it explains, in a nutshell, the whole book. Okay, so she's soothing. Mike Koenigs [00:15:06]: Really captured that resonance of her voice, which you don't normally notice in conversation. And then this one. Jim Shiels. This is probably one of the most natural sounding audiobooks I've ever heard because it is spot on. Jim. Here goes. Ai Audio Speaker [00:15:27]: When I was a kid growing up in New Jersey, my mother kept a greeting card on the corner of her dresser. On the front, an attractive couple dressed in white walked the sand of a beautiful beach in the Virgin Islands. Mike Koenigs [00:15:38]: I mean, he's just great. Paul Colligan [00:15:40]: Sounds like an audiobook. Sounds like an audiobook. Mike Koenigs [00:15:43]: It really does. And then Paul Collagan, listen to this. Ai Audio Speaker [00:15:47]: You are now empowered to make all the right moves because you know what they are and you know what you want and you are empowered to act on it. And you can do this regardless of how loudly the world is screaming the wrong song at you when you know why you're doing. Mike Koenigs [00:16:00]: First of all, that really sounds good. It's got a lot of bass, a lot of tonality, and a lot of resonance. Again, just like I would not know that isn't you. Anything else? Before we get into some of the main show, because part of the breakdown here is we're going to answer your questions. Everything you want to know about publishing, the process, the step by step process you go through. And then, of course, we'll talk a little bit about what it's like to work together. Paul Colligan [00:16:30]: Question number one, how does it sound? The answer is, it sounds great. Let's keep going. Mike Koenigs [00:16:34]: Yes. Okay. And you can learn more. By the way, an audiobook in a week is the website that we put together, and we'll have a little incentive for you to go there in just a couple minutes besides getting some free stuff. All right. In terms of the process, we'll go through the process because I think that's important to get your head around. And for us, it's like head over to the website, push a button, and then the process we go through is like a 60 minutes session with your engineer. So talk a little bit about what that experience is like. Mike Koenigs [00:17:11]: Paul. Paul Colligan [00:17:12]: Well, first of all, there's no pressure. It's not a 60 minute recording session. It's 60 minutes with the engineer to talk about the mic and talk about what you're going to do and answer any questions, make sure we have logins and passwords, all that stuff is set up. And then what you do is you read approximately the first chapter of your book. But a couple of things. Number one, if you make a mistake, keep going because we can fix that later. And then the big thing is we want you to read the book as you would read the book, because Mike talking is a little different than Mike reading. And so to get a sample of you reading the book in your, you reading the book style is very viable. Mike Koenigs [00:17:50]: And, you know, that's where we get the breaths, that's where we get the natural nuances, that's where we get the base, that's where we get all that stuff. There's no pressure. Nothing happens. If you want to change things later you can, and it's a beautiful session set up at your convenience. We dont tell you Tuesday at ten, you click on a calendar, pick a time that works for you. No pressure. It's the audio engineer who will be working with the entire process. So the one who records you is the one who will produce you, who will edit you, who will do all these things. Paul Colligan [00:18:18]: Yeah, and I think we'll talk more about the AI component in a minute. But the challenge that most people have is it's like, okay, what gear do I have? If you don't have the right mic, we just send you one. And there's a lot of nuance to recording an audiobook, but I'd say 95% of the complexity or more is taken away when you don't have to do it. And that to me is what's most important. I can't tell you what a pain it was to figure out how to make this work. And we'll talk more about the pain part of the experience in a moment. But next I got to tell you a story. Mike Koenigs [00:18:59]: I can't tell you who it is, I don't have permission. But we had one client who did the process. And one thing you can do, if you record the first chapter and you like it, we'll just release the first chapter in your voice. Why not? We've already got it. And this one client called us back and he said, hey Paul, I love everything except, can I ask a favorite? Yeah, can we replace chapter one read by me with chapter one read by virtual me? And he actually liked the virtual sound better than the natural sound. Pretty cool. Paul Colligan [00:19:27]: Yeah, I think so. And that is the next one is like, okay, what's it going to sound like? So our little elves have to go to work and basically tune the model. This is the nuanced part. This is why some people say, well, I can just sign up for one of these voice AI systems and upload my book. And it'd be like, God, I wish it were that easy. There's a tremendous amount of nuance to tuning the voice. And then behind the scenes, the truth of the matter is the systems break a lot and they're inconsistent, and it does require a fair amount of manual tweaking and editing. So the first step is we just got to make sure your voice print is okay. Mike Koenigs [00:20:09]: And that gets either emailed or texted back to you and you just go, yep, I love it. Let's let it, let's let it fly. Paul Colligan [00:20:15]: And the cool thing is, no, well, the cool thing is, you know what we do the voice model with chapter two. I mean, let's get to work. So you recorded chapter one like you'd like chapter one to sound. We do the voice model for chapter two. And you can go back, you can go back up to three times with adjustments and whatnot, and, you know, we get it right for chapter two. Paul Colligan [00:20:34]: Yep. And then step four, beginning. Mike Koenigs [00:20:39]: Yeah. Mike Koenigs [00:20:39]: So talk about what happens next. How long does it take to crank out the book? Oh, yeah, there's a website. Paul Colligan [00:20:46]: Yeah. Audiobook. In a week. Once everything is approved, then we work with the engineer to assign the week when that happens. And I'll probably be pretty close to when you sign up, but sometimes people want, you know, you want to be around that week in case the engineer has a certain question or that type of thing. So don't be in Bermuda the week that happens, because, yeah, you could be working. Don't be working if you're in Bermuda. So, you know, we assign the weekend, we assign the engineer, and it gets done in one week. Paul Colligan [00:21:12]: And the process, honestly, the cutting and pasting of your book, you know how to cut and paste. That's not hard. It's the adjustment. It's those weird nuances. We had one AI model where the AI was convinced that our client pronounced tomorrow tomorrow, and our engineer had to go through every time the word tomorrow was in the book and change it from tomorrow to the right word. So it gets done, it gets approved, and then it gets Qaed internally for us, all the stuff that's obvious. And during the process, we ask you, how do we pronounce certain names? And anything that would get weird, that gets done, it gets done in one week, and then it gets sent to you in a system that you can, you know, give us thumbs up immediately, or if you want to review and listen, you can do it. It's sort of like a Google Docs kind of thing. Paul Colligan [00:21:51]: Really easy for you to make a comment, but one week? Mike Koenigs [00:21:54]: Yep. It's awesome. Um, I promise you, this is such a pain in the butt. Gone. Bye bye. Paul Colligan [00:22:01]: Oh, my God. Mike Koenigs [00:22:01]: And then from there, yeah. You do the review, you approve, and then, um, from there, if there's any changes, the team does a tweak, and then the publishing process. So there's several different publishings, and again, there's a lot of little details you don't have to care about or know about. But one of my favorite platforms, of course, is Audible, which is owned by Amazon. It's got a massive distribution. But Paul and his team have figured out how to get an even larger distribution. So talk a little bit about the publishing, the approval process, and when this thing gets rolling in terms of actually getting out to the world, we'll deliver. Paul Colligan [00:22:39]: The files to Google Drive folder. You'll have access and do immediately. And then we'll go through the process of getting the things submitted to Audible. Audible was not done by humans. I don't know who did it. They're mean. They don't like people, and we've just learned how to deal with them. So we'll get your thing on Audible. Paul Colligan [00:22:51]: We don't recommend that you stop at Audible. Mike, how many official audiobook distribution platforms do you think there are? Mike Koenigs [00:22:59]: You know what? I don't have a dang clue. Paul Colligan [00:23:03]: 38. Mike Koenigs [00:23:04]: Guess. Paul Colligan [00:23:05]: 38. These are library systems. This is Google books. This is Spotify. This is audiobooks.com. this is scribd. And be everywhere. Back when Mike and I were kids, the cool thing was, wherever fine books are sold, this is the audio version of wherever fine audiobooks are sold. Paul Colligan [00:23:24]: That can be done. That's not part of the package. It's just a little more. If you want to get distributed everywhere, reach by audible by default. We can point you in the direction. Do it yourself, or we can do it for you. Paul Colligan [00:23:34]: Okay. Yeah. And I think, um. What? Let's just be really clear. Everyone ends up having us do everything for them because what's your time worth? It is a giant pain in the butt again. We've had people who are like, yeah, yeah, well, you know, I'm going to sign up for the service. I'm going to upload my book, and after they've fiddled around for, I don't know, 810, 12 hours. And, like, I am so frustrated. Mike Koenigs [00:23:59]: Um, it's like sitting down with a CPM floppy disk, uh, computer for kids. Paul Colligan [00:24:06]: Ask your parents. Mike Koenigs [00:24:07]: Yeah, boy. Yeah, it's. It is. I wish it were a push button. It is not easy to push buttons. The moment it's push button easy and it's just done, uh, automatically. Well, I guess we wouldn't have that sort of business anymore, but some people just never want to touch it. So, um, you're the best thing we can do is just make sure you've got a plan that gets the book out to the world and starts making you money as fast as possible. Mike Koenigs [00:24:32]: And that's the next part of this interview. So, um, Paul, from your point of view, we've talked a little bit about this, but from your lens, why should someone consider doing this for their business? I've got my own litany of whys. Paul Colligan [00:24:47]: It's an instant, value affirming asset. Period. Mike Koenigs [00:24:52]: Welcome to the world of three second attention spans and fewer than 20 seconds to get a prospect's attention. Engage them. Get to know, like and trust you and say, I want and need what you have. Let's make a deal now. Introducing digital cafe AI, a relationship building AI that will take your hard earned leads and make them feel like you're sitting down with them for a cup of coffee, listening to their needs and responding to them with a personalized, useful, resourceful solution. It's the perfect AI team. A digital cafe AI does hours or days of work that normally requires an expensive team of specialists in minutes. It's the fastest, easiest, automated way to get attention, engagement and trust to close bigger deals faster. Mike Koenigs [00:25:42]: A digital cafe AI is a done for you service that can be adapted to any b, two b or B two c business. Money loves speed and time kills deals. So visit digital cafe AI to see how it will work for you. Paul Colligan [00:26:01]: Everybody that you're selling to has an iPhone or an Android device. They can click a button and they can start listening to your book immediately, you know, on the way out of the hotel, from the meeting they had with you on the flight home from the event, you know, at the after dinner walk, after they visited your website. It is an immediate, affirming, high value asset. Mike Koenigs [00:26:24]: Yeah, well, and it's one that closes deals. So what I would say in my experience, and this is after talking to and enrolling and closing a lot of business deals personally and also coaching other people who have an audiobook. Audio is the most intimate mode of communication. Where we used to jokingly say, a book is something that people bring into their bedrooms, their bathrooms, on vacation, they bring you everywhere. An audiobook is easier to consume than a reading book. And Kindle is great, but it's a distraction device. Audio devices demand attention, and when people listen to you, they genuinely feel like they have a meaningful relationship with you. And what you'll find is you'll have people walk up to you and say, I feel like I know you. Mike Koenigs [00:27:23]: And you'll start getting what seem to be perfect strangers who do not feel like they're strangers to you. And that to me, is the intimacy that matters. So next up, what do you need? So let's say someone says, okay, I have a book. What else? Paul? Tell us about that. Paul Colligan [00:27:46]: You need a book. You need a voice sample. You need a production process, and you need a distribution process. That's it. You're done. There are no cops, there are no quality nerds out there who say yes or no. The second you've got a book, you can put it in audible, you can put it at Spotify, you can put it at Google books, you can put it at audiobooks.com dot. You don't need permission, you don't need a license, you don't need anything. Paul Colligan [00:28:09]: And you're right next to everybody else. Mike Koenigs [00:28:13]: Now, we've talked a little bit about how AI improves this part of the process. Again, think of it like this. There's the audio sample that gets captured. The engineer tweaks it, models it, and then verifies it by basically uploading your copy and creating some chapters. The other thing that happens is the audio gets sweetened. So it's as though it's gone through effects and it really does sound good, but it doesn't make mistakes. And one thing that can happen is you can determine if you want it to retain your own colloquial or not. Meaning if you have an accent, there are ways to make it non accenty sound as well. Mike Koenigs [00:29:01]: Can you talk a little bit about some other improvements and changes you've seen? Paul? Paul Colligan [00:29:05]: Well, yes, and it's funny that Mikes going all tech and I'm going all personal. How AI improves it is, it gets you out of the recording studio, it gets you out of that painful, sweaty process where you judge yourself four days in a row. AI makes it go away. I like things that make it go away, at least when it's painful. Mike Koenigs [00:29:27]: Yeah. The convenience factor. And then the sampling is really, really simple. Aside from you showing up on the zoom, you read your chapter. Is there anything else that anyone needs to know? I mean, no. Paul Colligan [00:29:41]: The one thing I'd say is voice sampling is there are a lot of people out there, you and I, at the beginning of this, we tried eight or nine of them to find the best ones. The one we're using is eleven labs. It's the default. It's expensive, but it's worth it. And so voice sampling is a process, but not everybody does it as well as eleven labs does. But yeah, you upload it, you adjust it, the engineers run the knobs, push things up and down, we get approval and we get to work. Mike Koenigs [00:30:08]: Yep. And at any given time we've tested out a variety of other platforms. If and when the platforms are better somewhere else, we'll start using that. But I'd say we are platform agnostic, but we're always trying out the latest. And in my experience, eleven labs, who's kind of the brains of the core of this. They change their model fairly frequently, so we end up retraining the system periodically as well. Paul Colligan [00:30:41]: Anything else about the sampling record upload, sample return? You're good. Will this work everywhere? Yes, this will work everywhere. Audio is a universal format. We'll give it to audible the way they want it, but we'll give it the way that you want it. We'll give it to everybody the way they want it. And if some fancy new thing pops up at some point there'll be conversion software that lets it work. This will work everywhere? Mike Koenigs [00:31:07]: Yeah, the way I did AI accelerator. When I give it away, I have a link that I send out which I'll give to you at the end of the show. And I deliver the audiobook on YouTube. So it's an unlisted YouTube link as well as a downloadable link and then an embedded player link so you can actually play it on any device you have. That's really easy. One thing that's nice about audible is your audible account. They give you coupon codes so you can actually give away your book. It's a nice little incentive. Mike Koenigs [00:31:46]: And you can see when someone uses that coupon code as well. Amazon just gives those to you. I use it as a way to create a relationship. It's like, hey, would you like me to send you a free copy of my audiobook? And they get that coupon and they feel, again a sense of reciprocity and it's an intimacy builder and it works everywhere. Yes. Timeline again, one week. That again depends on. That's the scheduling production process. Mike Koenigs [00:32:17]: One thing to note is when the book gets published online, everyone has a slightly different timeline in terms of when things are approved. So I don't want to create confusion and overwhelm here, Paul, but what kinds of timelines have you been seeing lately? Paul Colligan [00:32:40]: We have seen one that audibly is still going back and forth on. We've passed day 22. It's up on the wall as day 22 because we're fixing it. We had another one that got approved in six days. It's just the way it is. The cool thing is we're on your side. We're on top of it until the audible release gets released. Now the audio version, those files that you got, if you want to start releasing to people, you have that immediately. Paul Colligan [00:33:03]: And if you do the Spotify process, that usually takes three or four days. Mike Koenigs [00:33:07]: That's great. Talk a little bit about the set and forget the aspect of this. Paul Colligan [00:33:13]: You're not collecting money, you're not doing tech support, you're not checking up downloads, everything's in the cloud. Once this thing is done, it is there. And the great thing is people will go to audible, find it, download it, be happy about it. And you know what? Audible will send you some money for it. How cool is that? Mike Koenigs [00:33:31]: Yeah, I get free money every month. It's kind of crazy. Talk a little bit about the rights. Who owns the rights to this, and how does that work? Paul Colligan [00:33:40]: So on a high level, if you do it right, you own the rights, which is great because you want to give it away. Sometimes there are people that you do not want to bicker about. Just pay $9.99 to get this on audible. You want to own the rights. When you sign up with audible, it asks, do we get exclusive rights or do we get non exclusive rights? You just tell them non exclusive things. They pay you a little less for it, but then you have permission to do whatever you want with it. But then you own it. It's yours forever. Mike Koenigs [00:34:03]: How about someone who's published with a publisher? Are there workarounds for this? Have we been telling people? Paul Colligan [00:34:11]: Yeah, it depends on the contract. We actually have one client, really funny, who didn't get an audiobook in their contract, and they went to us to produce the audiobook. They actually sent it to their publisher and then they negotiated the rights. It, you know, I mean, I can't tell you what your contract is, but the cool thing is with chat GPT, we can run your contract through it, figure out the loopholes and go from there. But if you start doing it, it's you. You own it. Mike Koenigs [00:34:38]: I will just say. So this all comes down to, again, in the ideal circumstance, we can definitely introduce you to some of our book partners who, if you just want to create another book, that's another solution. Another thing that we have had some people do is they just add some additional content and effectively re perform their content in a different package. So there's alternatives. If this feels overwhelming or confusing, my greatest piece of advice is it might be easier to create another piece of work than worry about negotiating. Sometimes it takes more time to negotiate and go back and forth than it is just to create something new. Paul Colligan [00:35:24]: And the only thing worse than being in an audiobook recording your book is dealing with a lawyer. Lawyers, I love you, but publishers are worse than lawyers. Mike Koenigs [00:35:31]: I will just say that. So quality, we already know. We've listened to it. There's samples on the site at audiobooks in a week. In my opinion, it sounds remarkable and clean and consistent. Royalties. Talk a little bit about how the royalties work. Paul Colligan [00:35:46]: Paul royalties are yours. When you go through audible, it's your audible account which is a little bit nuanced to set up. We send you a video on all that process and then every dime that comes from Audible is there. The company that we use to distribute to the other 37 platforms, a company called Findaway, they get 5% for doing all the process for you. It's totally worth it. But the royalties go, that's a good deal. It's your account on both. Mike Koenigs [00:36:09]: Fantastic, by the way. Paul Colligan [00:36:10]: There's royalties, but there's also giving somebody your book and then converting a six figure client as a result of it. But royalties just seem kind of silly at that point. Mike Koenigs [00:36:18]: Yeah, I don't care about them. My attitude is from a pricing perspective, I make them as low as possible. Although here's what's interesting. I changed the pricing on my Kindle books recently and made them a dollar more and I sold more. So I haven't seen any evidence, at least in the b to b space of price resistance. And sometimes there's the perception of value increases with a price increase and you actually sell more. We are already giving away. Paul Colligan [00:36:54]: If I buy your Kindle, Mike, I have to sit down and read it. If I buy your audiobook, I listen to it on the way to work. Mike Koenigs [00:37:02]: Exactly. Yep. So we talked about the giveaways. One of the things that we will share with you as one of our bonuses is we have a whole launch process and I will give you my launch emails that help propel my book to bestseller status and also get me over 100 reviews. So that's something important, if you can actually become a bestseller by giving your book away. Paul Colligan [00:37:35]: That's not on the slides, people. Mike just came up with that as we did this. Mike Koenigs [00:37:38]: Well, I was thinking about how I could add more value? And I know that drives you nuts, Paul, but I'm like, okay, that's an easy one to say yes to. Paul Colligan [00:37:47]: Absolutely. Mike Koenigs [00:37:47]: And one other thing that's popped up before, and I talked to someone this past week who said, yeah, I've got an audiobook. And I'm like, really? Because I knew that this is kind of a big, valuable personality. And I'm like, really? When did you record it? He goes, I didn't record it. I had someone else do my voice for you. And I thought, now this is my strong opinion. I would never, ever, ever do that. Because where's the intimacy? Why would you share intimacy with someone else? And the only reason to do that in the past, if you're just a terrible speaker and a terrible reader and you didn't have time, it was like I can't do it. But now you don't have that excuse anymore. Mike Koenigs [00:38:36]: But what would you say, Paul? Why AI versus someone else? Paul Colligan [00:38:42]: Well, the other narrator model has been around for a while. The AI model is new. And so, first of all, I'd say it's just a timing issue. But if your book is selling you and it's not you and your voice, who is your book really selling? Mike Koenigs [00:38:55]: Yeah, totally. And again, it gets back to intimacy. And my style of reading when I do my audiobook samples is my speaking style. So I, and when I say that my intimate with one person speaking style, it's not my stage voice, I think that is a very, very important nuance, is when you work with the engineer, they'll help you capture that. This isn't anything you have to study or learn about. It happens in real time. Next up, Paul, we talked briefly about this, but you know what? If I don't have an existing book, you've got some really smart ideas, hacks, and workarounds with your improvisational mind. Paul Colligan [00:39:38]: Well, first of all, logistically, when you sign up to Amazon, when you sign up to audible, it says, what book is this? The audiobook version of? So if you don't have an audiobook to match with, you have a problem. Now, the other logistics, though, are these two things could really have nothing in common with each other. For the first 25 years, the audiobook version of the seven habits of highly effective people was a speech that Convey did talking about the seven habits. So the thing is, you have to have a book at Amazon to match with to be audible. But those can come from a lot of places. Some people know me for my podcasting work. If you've got a podcast, pick the ten best episodes, get yourself some transcripts, get yourself some AI images and graphics. Publish that as a book. Paul Colligan [00:40:21]: It becomes the audiobook version of this, all of Dan Sullivan's quarterly books. If you buy the book and you download the audiobook, the audiobook is not the regular book. It's just them talking about the book. So you can quickly make a book. And here's the other thing. AI is pretty good, and you can begin to design this pretty quickly, and you can get a book out the door pretty quickly. One of my favorite things is to record 20 episodes of a podcast, track what the most popular ten episodes are. That's your book. Paul Colligan [00:40:54]: It's research, it's design, it's all these things at the same exact time. So you got to have something, but it doesn't have to match perfectly. Mike Koenigs [00:41:01]: Yep. Ill plus, this because I agree with everything you're saying, Paul. And back when we created our first books, what Paul and I would do is we create the outline and we meet the equivalent of a Zoom call and we would perform chapters together and we'd just literally improvise and transcribe it. And this is before we had any of the tools that we do today. My last book as of now, an accelerator. I had the outline for this. I performed the content, I got it to my editor, and they turned it around from start to finish in 13 days. By the 17th day, I had physical copies delivered in this case for an abundance 360 appearance. Mike Koenigs [00:41:53]: I had a perfect fit audience. So here's what I will leave you with. If you don't have a book, reach out on audiobook in a week and we'll refer you to the best partner, because we've worked with some of the best book teams, I think, in the country for sure, probably in the world. And there's different styles of teams for you depending on your services. But one of the things that they have in common is they use us for their audiobook production services. So we do have relationships with some of the smartest and best people in the business. Paul Colligan [00:42:35]: Yeah, right on the front page, there's two links, there's get now, and there's also, I have a question, if you want to know, click on the button. I have a question. And the question will be, what do I do, since I don't have a book? And we'll go through a quick process to help you figure that out. So it's all built in. Mike Koenigs [00:42:49]: Right on. So we'll have a little call to action. Then we got a couple little bonus y ideas for you. One of the things that we wanted to do in this particular episode is give you a $500 off coupon. That's good as of right now until the end of this month. So the coupon code is pod 500. And when you go to audiobook in a week and you actually click and set up. What happens next, Paul? Paul Colligan [00:43:15]: Well, the investment is $1,000 for the voice capture model. That's that first call process. And what happens is if you enter coupon code pod 500, that goes down 500 more to $500. And so instantly, the very first step of the process is where that's taken off of. Mike Koenigs [00:43:33]: Right. So why did we do it this way? We wanted to make it non risky, but we also wanted to avoid having conversations with tire kickers. Now, I know if you're on this podcast listening and watching right now, you're probably not a tire kicker. So what we want to do is reverse the risk. So it means, um, we build the model, we give you your voice sample and build the voice sample and give you that back. And then you can decide to continue on from there into the full production process. So again, this is our way of making sure we're working with people who are motivated and want to get this done. But I will tell you, this is a remarkably affordable product. Mike Koenigs [00:44:11]: All the pricing is on the website. So we had somebody call us anything. Paul Colligan [00:44:17]: Oh, yeah, we had somebody call us and said, hey, Paul, I'm having nightmares about the audiobook process. I'm like, well, please tell. And there's some book where you could have it read things in different celebrity voices. And she apparently had a fake Gwyneth Paltrow read her book and she said, and it was so terrible, it was so bad that it gave her nightmares. This is not that process. Um, the $1000 sound engineer, by the. Mike Koenigs [00:44:38]: Way, you can get yourself in really, really, really deep stuff if you're using a celebrity voice without. Paul Colligan [00:44:44]: Well, that's a whole nother issue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, but, but the fact of the matter is, it's not send, forget it. You need a sound engineer. Um, and it's a lot more than that initial price on the investment on our side, but we just want to make sure it's worth it. And it's just that process to be there, the whole thing, it's, it's not sent us the book. We make something, come out later. At some point you are, you know where you are in the process, you know where you like, you know what you want changed. Paul Colligan [00:45:05]: You know what's going to happen. This whole education process is here for you as well. Um, um, this is, this, this is custom for a reason. You deserve it. Mike Koenigs [00:45:12]: Yep. Okay. So a couple, uh, other bonuses besides the book promotion material. Uh, one of them is Paul and I always buy your book. So we, we're going to be your, uh, your buyers and then we promote your book on our personal social networks. So that alone is easily worth the entire investment. Um, next, um, Paul has put together an audiobook social feed. Talk a little bit about that, Paul. Paul Colligan [00:45:39]: So society's future is fascinating and we'll see what happens. But the one thing that social is still good for is for feeding the search engines. And so what we've got is we've got a special audiobook social feed that just rotates through our clients books and just lets the search engines know that they still exist, lets the AI algorithms know that it still exists. And so just quietly in the background might pop up on your Google search if you have one preset. Won't happen, but it's a quiet little feed that makes sure that everybody knows that you still exist. Mike Koenigs [00:46:09]: Yep. I think my rule is you want to make sure that anytime someone searches for your name, what they find is something that's controlled and created by you. And I will tell you that, first of all, books and Amazon will show up on the first page of Google, guaranteed. And your bio is a very, very effective mechanism for social proof. You immediately increase your status, your authority, and your perception of being an expert. Again, audiobooks are so intimate. I just want to repeat that one more time. Paul Colligan [00:46:56]: You know. You know what's cooler? You know what's cooler than your. Your Amazon book showing up at the first page of search. You know what's cooler is your Spotify book also showing up on that page and your Google book also showing up on that page and your audiobooks.com also showing up on that page. And my God, this boy is everywhere. This gal is everywhere. Bonus number three. Mike Koenigs [00:47:14]: Yes. Okay, so we're gonna. We just started doing this. We're actually putting your book on our site if you choose to do so. Not everyone does that, but that's just something that we wanted to make available to you as well. We want to share in your success and talk about you. So this is our additional way of giving you something extra. So, Paul, here's the little call to action. Mike Koenigs [00:47:40]: Audiobook in a week.com. dollar 500 off. Get started. Anything else that you want to add before we wrap this up, are there any other questions that I should have asked you that I didn't or anything that you thought about creatively as we were going through this process? Paul Colligan [00:47:55]: You know, the giving away your book thing, it's not always a giveaway. It's a transaction. You get a name, you get an email address. If you have a product about a very specific service that you are offering, and somebody wants an audiobook about that service that you're offering, and they give you your name and email address and whatever you ask for in the process. That is what is called a hotline lead. Yes, it's a royalty game. Enjoy the checks when they come. Have a good time. Paul Colligan [00:48:24]: But also, you know that they've got this really, really cool asset out there that can begin to build your list, and we can begin to bring you, the audience members, into the book as well. But that initial process is there. And if you know how to build that grade, if you need some help building that. We can show you that, too. But it's not just an audiobook that sends you a royalty every once in a while. It's a machine that works 24 hours a day, seven days a week at 39 different platforms to bring you business. This is not a bad deal at all. Mike Koenigs [00:48:53]: No, I think it's spectacular. And the other thing that I will give Paul Big kudos for, which is when you start working with the team. Paul is a very, very creative partner, and he has his finger on the pulse of everything that's going on for podcasts, promotions, books and audio books. And he's paying attention to whatever is best. So at any given time, there's always going to be a new strategy and new tactic for increasing your exposure, the effectiveness of the tool, but also building your audience. And this is a way to open up that door and start a relationship with us. So, Paul, I want to give you the final word here. Is there anything you want to add on that list? Paul Colligan [00:49:47]: Your audiobook and your voice without you spending a minute in the studio, published everywhere. Come on, let's do this. Mike Koenigs [00:49:54]: There you go. Good call to action. All right, well, here's the way I'm going to finish this off. First of all, thanks for spending some time with us. I am absolutely in love with it, and we built this business because I needed it. And I also want to give a shout out to my son Zach, who really started it and got this thing rolling. He spent an enormous, enormous amount of time fine tuning and figuring out the engine just to make it work and how to tune it, but also how to feed the books into the system. And Paul's team has figured out how to scale it, professionalize it, and turn it into an end to end process. Paul Colligan [00:50:34]: But Paul, anything else? Paul Colligan [00:50:36]: No, man. I'll take those kind words. Yeah. Zach was great. The research he did, it's fun to go through the emails and see that process and learn from that guy. You did well with him, my friend. Mike Koenigs [00:50:46]: Well, thank you. I appreciate it. Well, so we're going to officially bring this episode to a close. I'm looking forward to my next book, my next audiobook, and also seeing what you do with it as well. So the next step is yours to take. Head on over to audiobookingweek.com, sign up, learn more, and listen to those samples. Talk to you soon. Paul Colligan [00:51:07]: SBye now.