Lucía Romero
Children's Books Author from Barcelona, Spain
Children's
Children's Books Author from Barcelona, Spain
Children's
Lucía had successfully published 10 children's picture books on KDP. They were doing well—selling 500-800 copies per month combined. But she was missing the audiobook market. She heard about parents who preferred audiobooks for bedtime stories, but audiobook production seemed expensive and complicated. She'd found one narrator willing to do a demo, but coordinating files, payments, and distribution was confusing.
A mom friend who was also an author mentioned that Publisheds' Audiobooks tool handled everything from narration to distribution.
"I thought audiobooks were only for big publishers. Publisheds made it dead simple. Now my audiobooks are my second-largest revenue stream."
Lucía used Publisheds' integrated audiobook platform. She uploaded her manuscripts, selected a narrator from the marketplace, reviewed proofs, and the audiobooks were published to all major platforms automatically. Within 3 weeks, all 10 of her books had professional audiobooks available.
Children's book publishing seemed simple to Lucía. She wrote illustrated stories, hired a designer for covers, and published on KDP. Within six months, she had an audience of thousands of parents buying her books for their children.
But she felt like she was leaving money on the table. Parents would message her asking, "Do you have this in audiobook?" She had to say no. The audiobook market for children's books was growing rapidly, but Lucía thought entering it meant hiring expensive narrators, dealing with rights, and navigating complex distribution channels.
The idea of audiobooks intimidated her.
Then one morning, at a parent playgroup, another author mentioned that she'd published audiobooks for all 15 of her children's books using Publisheds. It took her three weeks. Lucía's ears perked up.
She investigated, and sure enough, Publisheds had an integrated audiobook platform. Here's how it worked:
Lucía uploaded the text of her books. Publisheds had a narrator marketplace where she could browse voice actors, listen to samples, and see their rates. She selected narrators whose voices matched the tone of each book. One narrator for her gentle bedtime stories, another for her adventure series.
The narrators recorded the audiobooks and uploaded them to Publisheds. Lucía could listen to them and request revisions if needed. Once approved, Publisheds automatically distributed the audiobooks to Apple Books, Spotify, Google Play, and other platforms.
The whole process took three weeks for all 10 books. Lucía did maybe 10 hours of work—mostly listening and approving.
Within the first month, her audiobooks were getting downloads. Parents who preferred listening to their kids before bed now had Lucía's books in that format. Teachers who wanted to play stories during class time could use the audiobooks.
By the end of the first year, her audiobooks had 50,000 downloads. She was earning €8,000 per month from audiobooks alone—a 40% increase to her overall revenue.
More importantly, she'd discovered a new way to reach readers. The audiobook audience was slightly different from the text audience. Some people bought both formats for the same book. She was doubling revenue on each title.
Lucía is now planning to expand her audiobook narration to include celebrity voices and even character dramatizations for her series. The foundation Publisheds provided made entry simple; success is making her ambitious.
Join Lucía Romero and 1000+ authors growing with Publisheds.