If e-books equalized the publishing frontier for self-published professionals, it’s safe to say that audiobooks are the last great holdout for traditional houses.
Requiring equipment, time, and technical know-how, audiobooks have always seemed more expensive and like too much hassle than they’re worth.
But the twenty-first century is nothing if not full of technological advances. The proliferation of .mp3s, digital players, and audiobook subscription services like Audible has caused an uptick in audiobooks, and, predictably, Amazon has heard that call.
Amazon company ACX (Audiobook Creation Exchange) is a hip new marketplace where indie authors, traditional authors who have maintained their audiobook rights, agents, publishers, and anyone else can commission an audiobook.
ACX has sections that cater separately to those that need their books converted to audio, and those that can do the conversion. This means that it is easy to use no matter what you’re looking for on the exchange.
As an author, you have choices. You can, if you have the ability, record yourself reading the book. Authors like Neil Gaiman have done this to great effect! If you want to be your own narrator and don’t need any production help, just upload via ACX and you’re good to go!
If you’re looking for a narrator (who almost always doubles as a producer), ACX gives you two options: you can either pay your narrator upfront (which usually costs around $200-400 per finished hour of audio), or you can do a royalty share with them, where they would get 50% of the royalties.
For an author looking to really push their audiobooks, paying upfront is a great choice. For those just testing the waters, try a royalty share!
ACX is probably the best among Amazon’s subsidiaries at spelling things out for you. They make it easy to contract work, produce it, and publish it across most of the audiobook channels. They have work-for-hire agreements ready to use, require 15-minute samples and auditions from narrators, and give you the option for controlling your quality. Pretty neat, huh?
The only thing that’s missing from ACX is how to get sales from your audiobook. Stay tuned next week for the Wise Ink guide to promoting your audiobook.
Have any of you used ACX to make your audiobook? It’s a new service—what are your thoughts?
Great information, thank you.
No, I have not used ACX.
You say, “Amazon company ACX (Audiobook Creation Exchange) is a hip new marketplace where indie authors, traditional authors who have maintained their audiobook rights, agents, publishers, and anyone else can commission an audiobook.”
I have kept my audio rights for all my books. I prefer to get audio editions of my books published by entities such as Brilliance Audio.
“Brilliance Audio, a division of Brilliance Publishing and part of the Amazon Companies, publishes award-winning bestselling fiction and non-fiction in audiobook format.”
For my “How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free”, Brilliance approached me and offered an advance. What’s more, Brilliance paid for the narrator. Since paying the advance, Brilliance has sent several royalty checks.
In short, if you have a great book, companies such as Brilliance will find you and you don’t have to pay up front costs. This is much more “hip” to me.
Ernie J. Zelinski
The Prosperity Guy
“Helping Adventurous Souls Live Prosperous and Free”
Author of the Bestseller “How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free”
(Over 250,000 copies sold and published in 9 languages)
and the International Bestseller “The Joy of Not Working”
(Over 280,000 copies sold and published in 17 languages)