About Sounded.com
Even before we started building Sounded.com, before any lines of code were written or even decided upon a name, our origin story is most definitely rooted in a place of authentic love for books within our team and a shared passion for discovering new stories of both fiction and non-fiction to enjoy. If asked which came first, our proprietary platform or wanting to create something authentically awesome for the authors, publishers and listeners, it was very much the latter.
So what exactly is Sounded.com and how does it help authors and publishers?
‘Sounded.com is an audiobook production platform, or to put it another way, a suite of tools to give writers, authors and storytellers everything they need to turn their written work into an audiobook; quickly but also with real time editing and customisation. Some of the frustrations we identified authors have when wanting to turn their work into an audiobook, is the significant cost and also that it can take months to get an audiobook production finalised. For independent authors wanting their stories to be enjoyed by new audiences and publishing houses with back catalogues, this is a real barrier for them wanting to enter the audiobook market. So we built an environment which would allow them to have access to all the tools they would need to create an audiobook from their work, but most importantly allow them full control of the process from uploading the file themselves, to editing chapters by line, event adjusting the tone and speed of pronunciation of words. They can choose from 800 available narrators all with different tones, accents, styles. We even have a choice of 50 languages, which opens up whole new sectors to sell their work to. However, we feel the most exciting part of this area of Sounded.com is the speed of which it takes to do all this and then see and hear your completed audiobook. We really think what we have built is a real and authentic game changer in audiobook production.’
What about publishers and customers, what has Sounded.com built for them?
After we had started on our journey to create our audiobook production platform, we never actually envisioned we would also create our online store, but it just made total sense. Once an author has the audiobook they are happy with, why not give them access to a store to sell it from? Not only that, but with some of the highest royalty rates in the industry. It also helped remove one of the other barriers we identified authors had when it came to listing and selling their work. We want everything on Sounded.com to be easy. Easy to use, easy to edit, easy to complete, easy to sell and most importantly, easy to enjoy.
When is Sounded.com available?
‘Our official launch will be at the London Book Fair on 18 April 2023 where our team are also exhibiting, so our team is very much looking forward to showcasing our production platform and online store which will be available via a mobile app and desktop. After that, we will be open to everyone from 1 May 2023. With a starting price point of £100, we want Sounded.com to be accessible to as many authors as possible and cannot wait to hear their words come to live with our voices.’