- This event has passed.
Wednesday Wisdom: Live Interview with Carla Herbertson (Zebralution) and Alison Larkin (Alison Larkin Presents)
16 June, 2021 @ 1:00 pm - 1:30 pm BST
Event Navigation
On Wednesday 16th June from 1–1:30pm BST tune into our live Wednesday Wisdom Q&A with Carla Herbertson, Head of International Audio Content for digital distributor Zebralution, and Alison Larkin, Founder of award winning audiobook publisher Alison Larkin Presents.
There has been a lot of talk about Spotify finally giving audiobooks more attention. It’s a biggie when you think they have an audience of over 250 mln paying streaming subscribers across 178 countries who are already used to consuming spoken word through podcasts.
“There is a tremendous opportunity to reach people that have not been exposed to audiobooks, through music streaming services like Spotify,” said Tom Webster from Edison Research when speaking at the Audio Publishers Association Conference in the US last month. He attributes the growth in podcast listeners aged 12-34, to the music services and predicts the same can happen for audiobooks.
The publishing industry is eagerly awaiting more information on the music service’s next move, but how can publishers ensure they too can be part of this new audience reach.
In this Wednesday Wisdom session, Carla will share tips for publishers on how to make your audiobooks thrive on Spotify – from looking at content strategy, to using analytics and their unique marketing tools lismio (app & biggest audiobook playlists/profile) which helps consumers discover audiobooks on the Spotify platform. We will also be chatting to Alison about why she decided to adopt a ‘go-wide’ strategy for her audiobooks catalogue.
We’ll also be opening up the Q&A to the audience in the last 10 minutes of the session, so please do bring your questions to ask Carla and Alison about boosting your sales via Spotify.
*This session will have live closed captioning available for viewers to toggle on or off as needed*
About Wednesday Wisdom
The Wednesday Wisdom series is designed to give you a brief, inspiring insight into the working lives and projects of publishing experts, and the help you learn more about the services that can take you to the next level. On selected Wednesdays throughout the year, take a break and join us on Zoom for live these Q&As to top up your motivation and learn something new.
BookMachine members can browse 40+ Wednesday Wisdom replays in the archives.
Want to take advantage of this member perk? Sign up to be part of the community.
About Carla
Carla Herbertson is Head of International Audio Content for digital distributor Zebralution. She develops content partnerships with key players within publishing and digital media industries to bring audiobooks and spoken word content to Zebralution’s platforms, which includes music streaming services. Carla has been working in the audio industry for twenty years. During her ten-year stint at the BBC produced radio programmes and dramas across many of its stations and as a freelancer, Carla consulted on a variety of audio productions for PRH and the Open University. Before joining Zebralution, Carla developed a high quality and cost saving strategy for the Royal National Institute of Blind People’s Newsagent service.
Follow Carla on Twitter @smallcarla
Connect with Carla on LinkedIn
About Alison
Alison Larkin is the award-winning narrator of over 200 audiobooks including The Complete Novels of Jane Austen. She is also a writer/comedienne and the bestselling author of The English American, an autobiographical novel about an adopted English woman who finds her birth parents in the US, which grew out of her hit one woman show on the subject. In 2017, she founded Alison Larkin Presents, a unique independent audiobook company based in Western Massachusetts that has, to date, won 11 AudioFile Earphones awards for excellence.
Follow Alison on Twitter @AlisonLarkinTEA
Connect with Alison on LinkedIn
About Zebralution
Zebralution is a digital distributor of audiobooks to book-centric services like Apple Books, Kobo, Storytel as well as music streaming services where they specialise in making audiobooks discoverable on the likes of Spotify, Deezer, Napster, YouTube Music and Apple Music which creates additional reach and revenues for publishers. Zebralution operates globally and represent UK, US and European publishers.