Publishing Audiobooks on Amazon: ACX Audiobook Publishing

About this video

Dale Roberts explains publishing audiobooks through ACX (Audiobook Creation Exchange), Amazon’s platform that distributes to Audible, Amazon and Apple iTunes. He argues audiobooks are growing because people can listen while commuting or working out, like podcasts. ACX is only available in the US, UK, Ireland and Canada, and he warns accounts opened from outside those regions have been frozen; alternatives he names are Author’s Republic and Findaway Voices. Authors can narrate themselves, bring their own narrator, or use ACX’s narrator marketplace. Payment options are a 50/50 royalty split — a 7-year agreement where the narrator takes 50% of net profits, after which rights revert — or pay per finished hour, which he recommends long-term because the author then owns the rights outright. Rates he cites range from $25-$50 per finished hour to thousands, depending on narrator experience. ACX pays 40% of sales (20% under the split). He highlights the Bounty program: a $75 bonus when a referred listener joins Audible via his link and stays through the 30-day trial plus an additional 30 paid days, replacing the old $50 model phased out March 31, 2019. He also notes authors must request their 25 US and UK promotional codes from ACX support after publication.

Key takeaways

• ACX distributes audiobooks to Audible, Amazon and Apple iTunes, but is only open to publishers in the US, UK, Ireland and Canada
• The 50/50 royalty split requires no upfront cost but gives the narrator 50% of net profits for 7 years
• Paying per finished hour — cited as $25-$50 up to thousands depending on the narrator — lets the author own the rights outright, which Roberts recommends
• ACX pays 40% of sales normally, or 20% under the 50/50 split, lower than the 70% he cites for ebooks
• The Bounty program pays a $75 bonus for a referred Audible member who stays 60 days total, and authors must request their 25 promotional codes from support

Episode details: published March 19, 2019 · 13:45 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dale L. Roberts’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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