Every time I’ve looked at developing audiobooks over the years, I’ve found it really enlightening to read blogs, social media posts, etc. detailing the processes other authors have gone through. There’s no one-size-fits-all model to follow, so it’s been interesting to see what some of the different options are, what works and what doesn’t, and so forth. Ergo, I thought it would be fun to write something up detailing my own audiobook production process, and hopefully it can be helpful for someone else who’s embarking on this journey.
Shopping Around
I don’t remember exactly when I first really started considering having audiobooks developed. I’d gotten a number of inquiries from people over the years regarding if/when they’d be available, and while it was always encouraging to know there was some measure of interest, I was never sure if there was enough interest to make production worthwhile.
But I figured it couldn’t hurt to start looking at options, and it should surprise precisely no one that I created a pretty awesome spreadsheet to start tracking some narrators I liked. I rated them on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of whether I thought their voices would be a good fit for my books; I kept some with lower ratings on the list if they had other desirable characteristics (e.g. lower rates to better fit my budget). I included links to their demo pages and websites for later reference. It actually ended up being a lot of fun to put this together, and it was really handy to just be able to take one look at it and see which narrators might work best for my books. If you’re a spreadsheet nerd like me, try this out!
Some of the info shown here (namely PFH rates) is definitely out of date these days
A girl I went to high school with actually does audiobook narration. At some point a couple of years ago, she posted about an upcoming webinar from Audiobooks Unleashed, which, at the time, was a relatively new company that offered a unique “deferred royalty” production model. Authors could get an audiobook produced with no up-front cost, and the narrator would simply keep all the royalties until their fees had been covered. I was really intrigued by this idea, since it would obviously be pretty cost-effective for the author, and I didn’t really care whether I was making money or not as long as I was able to make audiobooks available to new readers/listeners. AU has their own directory of narrators; while most of these people also have ACX profiles and have done other work, authors are pretty much limited to choosing a narrator within this pool, since these people are on board with the deferred royalty program. I found a few I liked and added them to my spreadsheet, but this was around the time I was really getting neck-deep in drafting Embers, so I once again pushed everything audiobook-related to the back burner in favor of finishing my series.
Taking Things Seriously
Fast forward to this past summer when I was vending at a little local comic con. I was chatting with a customer and he asked about audiobooks. It was the third inquiry I’d gotten in the span of about two weeks. I looked around at my table, at which I was also selling ebook bundles redeemable through my direct Payhip shop, and I was like dang, if I did have audiobooks available, I could totally be selling them here, too. It had been a couple of years since I’d really looked into audio, and I decided it was time to take a more serious deep dive.
First Step: Identify Goals
After looking into Audiobooks Unleashed again, I decided to forego it; there were a lot of mixed reviews from other authors who had used the service, and I just wasn’t sure what to think anymore. So I decided to go the traditional production route, and there were a few things I knew I wanted to get out of it before I even started:
EASE OF PRODUCTION—ACX is the production platform directly tied to Audible and Amazon. As such, if you already have an Amazon account, you can just log in with your same credentials and import your books into your project dashboard. I opted to go ahead and use ACX for production, as it makes the whole process with contracts and narrators pretty seamless as well.
CONTROL OVER DISTRIBUTION—I knew I wanted my books to be available via Audible, since it’s inarguably the most popular audiobook platform out there (just like how Amazon is still the leader in ebook distribution). While Audible-exclusivity means a higher royalty percentage, you also get locked into that exclusivity for at least 7 years, which I most definitely did not want. After researching a few options, I decided to take the royalty hit and go non-exclusive at Audible, then use Findaway Voices to distribute to other retailers and libraries.
COST AND ROYALTIES—There are a few options when it comes to hiring a narrator. Perhaps the most basic is PFH, in which a narrator charges a certain rate “per finished hour” of audiobook. Say a narrator’s rate is $100 PFH, and you end up with a 10-hour audiobook; the final cost would be $1,000. The other popular option is Royalty Share, in which you pay the narrator nothing up front but split royalties for the rest of eternity. This is a riskier model, since you as the author are obligated to market the book much more aggressively in order to ensure your narrator gets paid. Some narrators are also open to Royalty Share Plus, in which you pay a rate that’s lower than their standard PFH rate but then continue splitting royalties to some extent as well. Some seasoned authors and narrators even reach a point where they have private contracts, working with each other outside the realm of ACX or any production platforms. Since I know I’m terrible at marketing, I decided I wanted to go ahead and go the PFH route, simply to guarantee my narrator got paid. But I also wanted to try to find someone in one of the lower PFH tiers if at all possible, since I was anticipating my books—particularly Nexus and Ronan—being quite long and therefore expensive. The lower PFH tiers are a little tricky to navigate, as most of the narrators you find there are either lower quality or brand new and inexperienced. But there are still some hidden gems, if you can find them.
A FEMALE NARRATOR—I knew I wanted a female narrator since my main character is female, though I always told myself I wouldn’t completely rule out a male narrator if he had the right voice. But due to the gritty nature of my books and characters, if I went with a female narrator, she’d need to have a lower vocal range—nothing too flowery. That was a huge factor in the rating system in my original spreadsheet.
Second Step: Filtering
I started by consulting my old spreadsheet and revisiting some of the narrators I’d scored highly and who fit my budget. Some of them had raised their rates in the intervening years since I’d created the sheet, while others had gone inactive or just didn’t quite have the vocal qualities I was looking for. I started browsing ACX’s narrator library again, filtering by female narrators in a certain PFH range, and added several more names to the spreadsheet. But there’s only so much you can learn from a narrator’s ACX samples, website demos, and Soundcloud, so I figured it was high time I heard what some of these people sounded like reading my actual work.
third step: Audition Time
Pro-tip: if you’ve published multiple books, import ALL of them to ACX, even if there are some you never plan on turning into audiobooks. Or even if you never plan on making audiobooks at all, log in to ACX with your Amazon account and claim your titles. This prevents anyone else from trying to claim them.
I went ahead and got Dakiti: Ziva Payvan Book 1 all set up at ACX and imported the rest of my books as well. When I first opened up auditions, I decided not to specify a project budget, just to see what kind of responses I might get. It actually didn’t take long to receive a couple of inquiries about the budget and the book itself. One in particular was from a guy whose demos were absolutely fantastic but who was way out of my price range. He ended up not auditioning in light of that, but was very kind. I figured I’d better go ahead and specify a budget just to avoid having to turn more people down.
Meanwhile, I had a new Twitter follower that very evening: none other than Carly Landry, audiobook narrator. Out of curiosity, I checked out her website and was intrigued by a commercial voiceover demo I found there. I went and found her ACX profile and discovered, to my absolute delight, that her PFH rate was within my price range. She had a good selection of samples on her ACX page and had one published title under her name at Audible. It was clear she was relatively new to the narration scene, but she had a great natural reading voice, and most importantly, a lower vocal register. Remember what I said about hidden gems? I reached out to her directly via email and invited her to audition for Dakiti.
I had a couple of other narrators audition organically as they were looking for open projects, and I sent audition invitations to a few others from my spreadsheet. Since I didn’t have a ton of experience listening to audiobooks, I sent the audition files to a couple more audiobook-savvy writing friends for some additional feedback. I ended up narrowing it down to two narrators, and I was pleased to still be able to offer some positive feedback to the others even though my overall answer was a resounding “no thanks.” While the other of the two had more experience, I ultimately ended up choosing Carly because her vocal tone was exactly what I’d always envisioned for these books. I made her an offer and production began! She’s been absolutely fantastic to work with and has only gotten better as we work through the series. Now here we are with both Dakiti and Nexus available in audio, and Ronan is on its way. Fracture and Embers will of course follow.
post-production: more Distribution Decisions
As I mentioned, I had already decided that I would be non-exclusive to Audible. With both completed books, I’ve taken the finalized audio files from ACX and have uploaded them to Findaway Voices myself for wide distribution to platforms like Chirp, Spotify, Barnes & Noble, and more. However, in addition to Audible/Amazon, ACX also distributes to Apple Books…and so does Findaway. This is where you have to make another choice: which Apple version will you keep? Remember, with non-exclusivity, you end up with a much lower royalty percentage from any ACX-based sales, but ACX also doesn’t allow you to control your own pricing, so the audiobook tends to be more expensive than at other retailers. Findaway gives you a higher royalty percentage and allows you to set your own price, so technically you could price your book the same as it would be at Audible and reap those extra benefits. Personally, I like to set my prices lower at Findaway so the books are more affordable and appealing to readers/listeners. In the end, the question to ask yourself is whether you want 25% of whatever price ACX sets, or whether you want 45% of the price you choose yourself at Findaway.
Regardless of which platform you choose to use for Apple, you’ll want to hide the other version so there aren’t two copies showing up in the search results. If you distribute to Apple via ACX, simply de-select Apple from the list of retailers at Findaway. If you distribute to Apple via Findaway, once the ACX version is live as well, you can simply email Apple’s support and request that they suppress the ACX version; just include the links to both in the Apple store and specify which one should be kept and which should be hidden. It takes a little while for the change to process, but it’s ultimately pretty easy.
If you’re Audible-exclusive, ACX provides both you and your narrator with some promo codes to distribute for people to redeem a free copy of your book at Audible. Unfortunately, you don’t get any Audible promo codes if you’re non-exclusive, but Findaway does provide 100 codes to redeem at Spotify. Spotify definitely isn’t as popular of a listening platform as Audible, but I’m still glad to have this option. I’ve shared codes with friends and coworkers, sent some to my narrator so she can promote herself, and still have plenty tucked away for future giveaways and promotions.
Things to Consider
I’ve had an absolute blast with audio production so far, and I’m so glad I finally took the leap. It’s still so surreal hearing my characters’ names coming out of someone else’s mouth!
If you’re an author who’s considering taking the audiobook leap for yourself, here’s a little checklist of things to think about and remember:
EXCLUSIVE OR WIDE? One of the first decisions to make is whether you’ll want your book to be Audible-exclusive or widely available. Remember, exclusivity means a higher royalty percentage, but wide distribution means more control over your title in every sense. If you do choose to go wide, I would personally still recommend using ACX for production, simply because it makes things pretty easy.
WHAT DO YOU WANT (AND NEED) IN A NARRATOR? Do you want a male or female narrator? What vocal qualities will be most appropriate for your book? A narrator who has only ever done cozy romance might not be the best fit for your post-apocalyptic thriller. Are there a lot of female characters in your book that a male narrator might struggle with, and vice versa? Might your project warrant multiple narrators? Pay attention to what genres a narrator has worked with before; most of them list their preferred genres on their ACX profiles.
BUT YOU MIGHT NOT FIND A NARRATOR SOLELY VIA ACX! I wouldn’t have ever found my narrator if not for Twitter. I’ve followed several others on social media for the past few years; they’re all way outside my price range, but I enjoy their work and it makes for good networking opportunities. Lots of narrators are on Instagram and/or TikTok. Follow a few you like; if nothing else, it might help you brainstorm what kind of voice you’re looking for.
WHAT PAYMENT STRUCTURE WILL YOU USE? This is also a factor in choosing a narrator, because some only accept certain payment methods. PFH is the most straightforward, but obviously it can be very expensive depending on a narrator’s rates and the length of your book(s). If you do a royalty share, your production platform handles the royalty split for you, which is a plus.
REMEMBER THAT YOUR NARRATOR IS NOT YOU. No matter how flexible and easy to work with your narrator is, keep in mind that the audiobook is never going to sound 100% like you’ve always heard it in your head. The only way that will happen is if you narrate it yourself 😉. But sometimes you’ll be pleasantly surprised; there have been several times throughout the production of my books where I’ve thought, “Wow, that’s not how I would have read that sentence, but that different emphasis turned out really cool!”
PROTECT YOUR WORK. Like I mentioned before, if you’ve published multiple books, go ahead and import all of them to your project dashboard on ACX, even if you never plan on producing audiobooks for some (or any) of them. This prevents anyone else from trying to claim them. There was a situation not too long back where this very thing happened; I was a little unclear on who exactly was getting scammed in this scenario, but long story short, an author had her book claimed by someone else and was currently fighting to get what was ultimately a fake audiobook in her name taken down from Audible. It sounded like a huge mess.
NETWORK, NETWORK, NETWORK! I would by no means consider myself an audiobook expert, so like I said at the very beginning of this post, it’s really helpful to browse around and see what other authors have done. Not every process will fit your personal style or budget, but it gives you an idea of what options are out there. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. There are a couple of great Facebook groups dedicated specifically to audiobook development and marketing that are a great source of information.
HAVE FUN! I’ll say it again: this whole process has been such a blast, and I’m so happy to finally be offering my books in this medium, enabling them to reach a whole new market of readers.
