Ten Hours and Fifty-Six Minutes

Do you want ten hours and fifty-six minutes of free entertainment?

Back when Shéa Macleod and I were working on rolling out the Viola Roberts Cozy Mysteries, I got some surprising feedback from a hard core audiobook listener:

“I won’t buy your books because they’re too short. I don’t buy audiobooks unless they are at least 8 hours.”

This had never occurred to me! But for those with a long commute, a lot of chores to do, or who just love to work with a story in their ears, it made perfect sense.

We decided to package together books 1-3 and 4-6 of the series to give our listeners the option of shorter or longer listening sessions.

Followers on Facebook may have noticed that each Thursday, on my professional page, I feature one of my audiobooks and customer reviews. I’ve also started re-vamping how I offer free audiobook codes (join the Review Crew!) and find new listeners.

This week I decided to do a little data mining around reviews and sales for my various audiobooks, only to find this message waiting for me:

0 reviews (0 new from last week)

ACX Narrator Dashboard

Holy Cow! The second Viola Roberts Collection has no reviews at all?!
How can that be?
That collection has sold almost 100 copies, and not a single one of those listeners has ventured to Audible to leave a review.

I was surprised because Audible makes it so easy to leave a review. When a reviewer clicks “write a review” sometimes there is a series of questions. Sometimes, Audible offers separate categories for “story” “performance” and “overall” stars for a book. Whichever interface you get, a review is fifteen (15) words. That’s 1-3 sentences.

And just to be honest, if you copy and paste, “I received a free code in exchange for an honest review of this audiobook collection,” you’ve already met your 15 word minimum! Follow it up with “I liked it,” or “This was fun,” and you have been a HUGE help to Viola in assisting her to meet new listeners and fans.

Here’s what it looks like:

Now I’m on a mission: If you’ve listened to the Viola Roberts Books 4-6 collection, will you consider leaving a review?

And if you have not yet listened, well, you’re in luck: Join the Review Crew and you can have a code to listen to TEN HOURS and FIFTY-SIX MINUTES of fun, funny mystery stories, read to you, by me, for free.

The stories are fast paced and funny, perfect for working out or generally improving your mood if quarantine’s got you down. The collection includes The Body in The Bathtub, for my bunco-playing friends. The Venom in The Valentine, perfect for those who find that Valentine’s Day is a holiday that could use a little murder, and The Remains in The Rectory, which will fulfill the pent-up desires to travel we’re all suffering due to the Pandemic.

Thanks for helping our book-babes to find their audiences. See you in the Review Crew!