Im an Author Who Narrates Audiobooks. How Do I Upload My Audiobook?

The written discussion is an increasingly crowded market. There are more than books published every 24-hour interval alongside many thousands of articles and many millions of social media updates. At the same time, people are listening to more podcasts and audiobooks, making time for consumption in their busy lives while doing other things.

The advent of mobile and streaming internet speeds alongside cheap engineering for creation and consumption have exploded the potential for audio in the last decade and it but keeps getting improve. Here are some recent headlines:

• The Audio Publishers Association reports seven years of double-digit acquirement growth for audiobooks in the The states [Publishing Perspectives]
• The Independent reports that audiobook sales are predicted to overtake ebook sales in the U.k. in 2020
• Fourth dimension spent listening to online audio reached a record high in 2019, with weekly online audio listeners reporting an average of about 17 hours of listening in the terminal calendar week, according to the Edison Infinite Punch Report

In that location is conspicuously a growing need for audio in all kinds of formats and every bit creators, we are well placed to take advantage of this shift in consumer behavior. In this article, I'll explicate how to self-publish an audiobook.

[This is an excerpt from Audio for Authors: Audiobooks, Podcasting, and Vocalism Technologies.]

In that location are a number of companies yous can apply to independently publish your audiobook. Your choices will depend on where you are in the world as not all services are bachelor globally. I use ACX alongside Findaway Voices for my audiobooks so those are the companies I'll focus on here.

ACX

ACX.com is a marketplace that connects rights holders (authors, publishers, agents etc) with narrators and producers to enable audiobook production. It's an Amazon company and audiobooks produced through the site are sold on Amazon, Aural and iTunes.

You accept to legally ain the rights to use ACX, for instance, you lot're an contained author who cocky-publishes or a traditionally published writer who has not licensed audio rights.

At the fourth dimension of writing, ACX.com is only available to authors in the US, UK, Canada, and Republic of ireland, just hopefully, it will expand to other territories over time as audiobooks continue to abound but you lot can also use Findaway Voices as covered beneath this section if you are exterior of these countries.

Log into ACX with your normal Amazon login and claim your volume

Search with the Amazon ASIN, the number that Amazon assigns to every book on the store, or the book title and then claim your book and then it is assigned to your ACX account. This will exist available as an option as shortly as your book is on pre-order, then if you lot want to launch your audiobook at the same time as your ebook and print book, use a pre-gild flow that allows for the corporeality of time information technology takes to produce and publish an audiobook.

Enter the book details for the narrator

ACX volition pull data from your ebook profile only y'all volition demand to add notes on sales and your author platform, which is especially important if you want to attract an experienced narrator, or if you want to practise royalty share deals.

You likewise need to include a sample for the audition and specify what type of vocalisation you want. For case, an African-American developed male vs. a young woman would suit ii different narrators.

You simply need to load your audiobook embrace past the fourth dimension y'all publish, but adding it early might concenter more narrators to audition for the project. I accept mine designed at the same time every bit the ebook and print volume covers. They have the same design element and font but audiobook covers are square, even in digital format, presumably because of CD covers in the past.

Decide on the contract and exclusivity

At this stage, you must choose the blazon of deal you'd like to do with a narrator — pay outright or do a royalty split deal. The latter is a seven twelvemonth contract and you will need to be exclusive with ACX.

If y'all self-narrate or you have hired a narrator at the finished 60 minutes charge per unit, there is only 1 pick at the contract stage — whether you go exclusive or non-exclusive with ACX for distribution.

If you become sectional, you receive a higher royalty rate only your audiobook volition but exist bachelor on Amazon, Audible and iTunes. This is likewise a seven-year contract, just if you own the rights, you can email ACX afterwards one yr and inquire to be moved to a non-sectional contract.

If you go not-exclusive, y'all receive a lower royalty rate but you can also publish your audiobook on other platforms and sell directly from your website. You have complete command.

If y'all are exclusive with ACX, your audiobook will only exist available to those who listen on Audible and iTunes. Y'all're missing out on other global markets and companies which are expanding at an incredible rate like Storytel, Scribd, Kobo Audio and more, with new services emerging all the time.

You also miss out on library distribution if y'all're sectional on ACX, and you lot can't sell direct or use a promotional service like Chirp from BookBub. These may be small income streams at start, just over time, as y'all develop an audiobook ecosystem and the market keeps expanding, these could overtake your ACX royalties.

Findaway Voices

FindawayVoices.com tin can aid lucifer you with a narrator, or you can publish your own files separately. They have a royalty share option as well as a pay per finished hour contract. You can set the toll for your audiobook separately for retail and library markets and you can use their Authors Straight app to sell audio direct to listeners.

Their tagline is 'Take back your freedom,' considering the creator has the opportunity to reach listeners on global audiobook platforms and set their own price.

Most of the features are available to authors globally but some are existence rolled out to different markets over fourth dimension.

Kobo Writing Life (KWL) Audio

You can publish audiobooks directly through Kobo Writing Life and this will brand your audiobook eligible for different kinds of promotion. Kobo.com sells audiobooks to its readers, but Kobo also works with sister visitor, Overdrive, for library distribution, likewise every bit having distribution deals with Walmart and other companies. You can reach the aforementioned markets through Findaway but the additional promotion may brand information technology worthwhile to get directly to KWL.

Your audiobook. Your choice.

Personally, I prefer to go wide with audio as much every bit possible, so I choose non-exclusive for my English-language audiobooks. Nevertheless, when I was just starting out as an author, with less money to invest, I did exclusive, royalty carve up deals, and so information technology's completely your choice.

I use ACX with a not-sectional contract for Amazon and Aural distribution and so use Findaway Voices to reach wider markets. I'g pulling all my books out of ACX exclusivity when the royalty-split up contracts come up for renewal.

There are other companies that tin help y'all get your books into sound and of form, yous may choose to license your rights to an audiobook production visitor. Any yous choose, make sure you understand where the audiobook will be distributed and how your royalties volition work for the long term.

Pricing

When you publish through ACX, they set up the price. Information technology is calculated based on audiobook length and tin besides change based on the various pricing mechanisms and promotions used by Audible.

For instance, a subscriber gets one credit a calendar month for $9.99 and tin 'buy' a $40 audiobook with that credit. There are besides various other discounting options for audiobook listeners that mean they don't pay full retail cost for an audiobook. The royalty argument from ACX includes a breakup of all these different variations.

When you publish through Findaway Voices, yous can fix your own toll for both retail and library sales. You lot also have an opportunity to do promotional pricing.

And so, if you lot want to command your own price, go with Findaway.

Physical sales of audiobooks

In 2018, the Sound Publishers Association survey appear that 91% of audiobook sales were digital in the U.s.a.. While the rest of the world lags backside past a few years, the global utilize of mobile devices ways that these numbers will proceed to grow. So while y'all tin industry and sell your audiobooks on CD with companies like CDBaby, you have to consider whether information technology is worth information technology. Personally, I cull to distribute my audiobooks in digital format but.

Desire to know more virtually Audio for Authors? Bank check out the book for more details.

More interviews and resources:

• How to record your own audiobooks and utilise ACX for distribution
• Writing for Audio First with Jules Horne
• Storyteller: Audiobook Narration Tips with Lorelei King
• Audiobook Narration and Functioning Tips with Sean Pratt
• Going further with audiobooks: An interview with sound rights expert J Daniel Sawyer
• Audiobook narration and working with narrators with Veronica Giguere
• How audiobook narration and production works with Rosalind Ashford
• Audiobook production and marketing tips with Jeffrey Kafer

Need more help?

If you'd like some more aid on your author journeying, check out:

• My Books for Authors
• My Audiobooks for Authors
• My Courses for Authors, including How to Write a Novel and How to Write Non-Fiction
• The Artistic Penn Podcast, interviews, inspiration and information on writing, publishing, book marketing, and creative entrepreneurship every Monday
• My videos at YouTube.com/thecreativepenn

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