ECHO POINT BOOKS & MEDIA is a quiet but growing presence in the book business. We are one of the largest online booksellers in the country, publishing over 1,000 of our own print editions, alternative editions of other publishers’ titles, and audiobooks. As our business grows, we’re proud to help our partners and serve our customers by leveraging our decades of experience and insight learned from selling millions of books. Learn more about EPBM⟶
Why Echo Point?
Echo Point Books & Media: Fast Facts
We have published nearly 2000 books and audiobooks
Collectively, our publishing partners generate billions in annual sales revenue; we work with some of the largest publishers in the world
We are highly experienced online book sellers, selling millions of copies
We ship several hundred thousand books annually
After selling millions of print books online, we maintain a 99%+ lifetime customer feedback rating (compare to Amazon’s 78% rating, before they stopped letting themselves be rated). This demonstrates our professionalism, responsiveness to our clients’ needs, and commitment to being a pleasure to work with
Echo Point Has Licensed Books from the Following Publishers:
Penguin Random House
Simon & Schuster
W.W. Norton & Company
Guilford Press
Taylor & Francis
Routledge
Skyhorse Publishing
Ulysses Press
Basic Books
MIT Press
University of California Press
Chicago Review Press
The Experiment
Free Press
VeloPress
Sales & Marketing:
Our experience in publishing and bookselling shows that we have both the capacity and the reputation to effectively market diverse audio works to a large customer base. As one of the largest online booksellers in the country, we often include promotional material in each package to promote books and audiobooks that might be of interest to that particular buyer. Essential to our success is knowing the subtleties of how Amazon works. This know-how helps get y/our audiobooks noticed—and it helps the sales of the print and electronic editions.
Quality:
Given how labor intensive audiobook production is, we only want to produce excellent books that we (and you) can take pride in. And, of course, like you, we have a reputation to maintain—and continue to grow—in the publishing business. We want to greatly expand our audio publishing, and that will only happen if we turn out quality work.
Even though we’re new to audio publishing, we’re already creating top quality recordings by hiring narrators/actors and recording studios that are used for creating audio books for Tantor, Hachette, HarperCollins, and other leading audiobook publishers. Importantly, the authors of our books are very pleased with our productions. Naturally we will work to create audios that you and your authors will be similarly happy with. Our goal is for you to be delighted with y/our audio production.
How we produce our audiobooks
An overview of our process for making sure every audio book is of the highest quality.
We carefully review many possible readers, hiring only top talent that has excellent listener feedback on similar books. We typically hire the same readers/actors that are hired by the best known audio publishers such as Brilliance, Tantor, and Recorded Books. When appropriate, we work collaboratively with print publishers or authors to make sure they are pleased with our narrator choice.
The actor chosen will send us and our sound engineer samples of recordings to confirm they have the sound and quality we want. The actor then produces a finished recording with an experienced sound engineer—again, the same quality studios as used by Tantor and the best known audio publishers.
We send their finished recording to another experienced sound engineer who examines/reviews the whole recording and makes any adjustments for sound quality and any mistakes. Typically some rerecording is needed.
When the sound engineer is "finished," we sample listen to it and hire an independent trusted reader/listener to listen to the whole thing while looking at the text (which the sound engineer does as well). Any mistakes are noted and, of course, fixed.
Echo Point published audiobooks are available everywhere listeners are, from Audible, to Spotify, to public libraries.
Just like the attention to detail and quality that has earned us our 99%+ feedback with well over a million transactions, the focus we devote to audio publishing creates audiobooks in which we and our authors can take pride.
Why audiobooks?
Audiobooks are an additive source of income for publishers and authors, and can be powerful marketing tools in themselves. Here’s why it is helpful for most books to have an audio version:
Audiobook listeners tend to be book mavens—they “consume” more books than most readers, which often makes them a great source for recommendations
Audiobooks never go out of print, so even if there is an unexpected surge in demand for a book, the audiobook option is always available
Audiobooks often create a positive double-dip. That is, if people like the audio version of a work, they often buy a print copy for reference or reminders
Audiobooks give you access to non-readers. There are millions of people who either don’t like reading or don’t have the time to read, but love listening to books on their commute, while exercising, or while doing chores