FAQs for Authors

(Amy’s attempt at a comprehensive explanation of audiobook production, as it relates to rights’ holders)

Over the past few years, I’ve received a number of emails from Australian authors wanting to know how to get their work into audio. Where does one start in a country where ACX is not open to you? Until you understand the jargon and how the different pieces fit together, it can be overwhelmingly confusing.

I started this website partly to explain the jargon and myriad of options, so authors could start to make sense of audiobook production. The site also provides a way for authors to find and contact narrators, and/or post their own auditions.

This page contains a lot of information. I’ve tried to place it in a logical order, but much of the pieces may only start to come together on the second or third reading.

DISCLAIMER: The information below is true to the best of my knowledge. It is what I’ve been told or I’ve read or experienced myself. A proportion of it is opinion and hearsay, and you should do your own research before taking any of it as the total truth. It is meant as a tool to help you on your way. As always, it’s only when you gather information from numerous sources that you can sort out which is correct, and which is right for you, so I encourage you to seek as much information as you can from as many sources as you can. If anything on this page (or this website) is incorrect or incomplete, I welcome your input. Let me know via the Contact page, so I can update this information as necessary. And finally, nothing on this page is meant to hurt or damage anyone. Please let me know if you feel anything should be changed or removed.

If you’re an author published with a trade/traditional publisher, or your ebook is selling well enough that it catches the eye of an established audiobook production company (Tantor, Podium, Brilliance, etc) they will likely make you an offer, and the process of producing an audiobook will be taken care of for you.

For most of us though, that isn’t the case. For those who have to arrange it themselves, where do you start?

In order to sell an audiobook, you will need three things:

  • the finished audio files (clean, crisp sound produced to technical specifications and a quality standard that is acceptable to audiobook retailers).
  • the cover artwork. This is something the author or publisher will usually arrange (although some production companies can arrange it for you).
  • to upload your finished files to an aggregator. (The aggregator is the entity who will distribute your audiobook to multiple retailers; receive sales royalties and sales data from those retailers on your behalf; amalgamate those payments and reports and then pass them on to you (or to you and the relevant narrator/s if the work is done under a royalty share basis) (after deducting their commission).

The decisions you will need to make in order to produce an audiobook include
(1) who you will partner with to produce your audiobook,
(2) on what basis you will pay your narrator or producer,
(3) will you sell wide or exclusive, and
(4) which aggregator you will choose to take your product to retailers.

These are four separate questions, but a choice you make in one of them, may affect the options you have available in one or more of the other three. (For example, if the deal you have with your narrator involves a royalty share component, that may reduce the number of aggregators you can choose from, as not every aggregator can accommodate royalty share.)

Just like ebook publishing, getting your audiobook to market involves uploading a retail-ready product to an aggregator, who then distributes it to retailers.

An Aggregator is the entity who sends your audiobook to all the retail outlets where it will be for sale (or for rent, in the case of libraries). The aggregator slots between the rights holder and the retail outlets, managing the uploading of your audiobook to multiple retail channels, (plus libraries), CDs and any other avenues that present themselves. They also receive royalty payments and sales data from each retailer on your behalf. They collate these payments and data; deduct their commission, and pass the remaining royalties on to you (or to you and your narrator, if your audiobook was produced under a royalty share arrangement).

To put it in author terms, KDP is an aggregator for all Amazon’s international storefronts, and Draft2Digital and Smashwords are aggregators for a heap of different retailers.  The beauty of using an aggregator (particularly if you’re selling ‘wide’), is that you upload your work once, and the aggregator sends it to multiple retail outlets, including making any formatting or file-name modifications necessary for each platform. They take care of receiving payments and reports from multiple distributors, and combining them into one regular reporting and payment process for you. They also take care of filtering through to all retailers any updated files or changes to your audiobook. Some will also filter through temporary discounts or sales promotions for your audiobook.

A list of aggregators and what they each offer is further down this page. But first, let’s talk about who produces the finished audio files which are uploaded to the aggregator. There are three types of entities who can produce your audiobook files:

  1. a single narrator (who you find either by advertising an audition or making contact yourself via websites like AussieNarrator.com). This narrator will either perform all the production tasks themselves or outsource some aspects (usually proofing, or proofing plus editing and mastering).
  2. a specialist audiobook production house who will coordinate a team including (at least) a narrator, an audio engineer/editor and a proofer.
  3. the production house attached to your chosen Aggregator. Most aggregators have an arm of their business dedicated to producing audiobooks, and just like audiobook production houses, they will coordinate a team including (at least) a narrator, engineer/editor and proofer.

The differences between these three partners and which will best fit your situation, depends on: your budget; whether you’ll be selling ‘wide’ or ‘exclusive’; who your distributor/aggregator is going to be; and whether you will be buying the audio outright or whether you and the narrator/s are going shares in the royalties.

Working directly with an experienced narrator is quite easy, and generally no more time-consuming than dealing with a production house or aggregator. But if you’re nervous because you’ve never produced an audiobook before and find the process daunting, or you fear the narrator you’ve chosen isn’t very experienced, then partnering with a production house for your first audiobook is a great choice, since you’ll have someone holding your hand through the entire process. It’s an easy and reassuring way to dip your first toe into the industry, and by your second audiobook you’ll understand things well enough to choose whether you wish to stay with a production house or go direct with a narrator for the cost savings and added control. Working with a production house may cost you more than working directly with a narrator, as there may be a fee for using their services for PFH projects. For royalty share projects, you will likely lose a percentage of the net royalties to the production house, (in addition to percentages going to the narrator and aggregator).

Commissioning an aggregator to produce your audiobook has similar advantages to using a production house, but it often will cost more and possibly be more impersonal, but there can be other advantages that being branded with your aggregator can bring.

Note that production houses and aggregators usually outsource narration to the same narrator contractors who can be employed by many other production houses or can be employed directly to narrate your book. Narrators work on a project-by-project basis, and the same narrators that work for one production house often work for any and all of them, as well as working directly for authors who contact them via their narrator website or other means. So if budget is your primary concern, it can be worth working directly with your narrator, rather than having production managed by another entity.

So, what’s the difference between using these three entities?  Who should you get to produce your audiobook: a narrator, production house or aggregator?

Most experienced narrators can arrange the entire process of audiobook production for you (everything except cover art, which you usually need to arrange yourself). They are the project coordinator who is in charge of producing the finished, retail-ready audiobook files, and they seamlessly manage the entire process for you.

Using an experienced narrator as coordinator means you’re only dealing with one point of contact. It means that information you’re giving is immediately getting right where it’s required.

But using a narrator as audiobook producer requires a level of trust. If your narrator doesn’t deliver what’s expected, there’s no one else to complain to! So research your narrators well; look at what other books they’ve done; speak to authors who’ve worked with them; listen to audiobooks they’ve narrated – at least to the free audio samples for their books at Audible. Make sure your narrator is experienced enough to be able to arrange all aspects of the production themselves.

Using a production house means someone (who isn’t the narrator) is overseeing the process. The production house will cast the narrator (or manage casting, in consultation with you), and have their own audio engineers and proofers take care of the editing, proofing, correcting, mastering, conversion and file upload, (leaving the narrator to prep the manuscript, narrate and re-record any corrections).

Using a production house can remove some of the uncertainty, but if you’re paying up front, it will often cost more than employing a narrator directly to manage all aspects of production. If you’re not paying up front, most production houses will only offer a royalty share arrangement if your work demonstrates consistently high sales (whereas you may be able to get a narrator to enter into a royalty share arrangement with you for your book if they see its potential, or they have a gap in their schedule, or they’re new to the business and they want another book on their portfolio).

Using a production house means there’s a team of professionals ensuring the quality of your audiobook, but production houses can also sometimes feel a little like mass-production, since your book is one of a number in production at any point.

Dealing with a coordinator who isn’t the narrator has advantages and disadvantages. You always have someone who can go in to bat for you, but you may not be able to clearly communicate directorial information directly to the person who’ll be bringing your words to life. Working through a production house may also bring other advantages, such as access to narrators that you couldn’t choose from otherwise, or dedicated marketing tools as part of their brand (like your book on their website, for instance).

Using a production house for PFH work will likely cost more than working directly with the narrator, though some are very reasonably priced. If you are working with a production house on a royalty share title, the production house will likely also take a percentage of your royalties, just as the retailer and aggregator do.

Most audiobook aggregators have an arm of their business which produces audiobooks (their in-house ‘production house’). The brand recognition that goes with being an aggregator means authors trust aggregators to produce quality audio. Aggregators can also offer additional value with marketing, since they have a vested interest in the success of the audiobook.

Aggregators as audiobook producers usually outsource the narration of their audiobooks to a pool of experienced narrator contractors, many of whom work for more than one aggregator or production house, and who also work direct (usually cheaper), so bear that in mind when considering this avenue. This method has the same pros and cons as outsourcing production to a production house.

Generally, this method tends to be the most expensive and has the least personal contact, but some aggregator production houses provide added value, such as a dedicated sales page for your audiobook, promotional codes that you can give away to potential reviewers, and other help with marketing, such as being featured on the aggregator’s website. One advantage of working with an aggregator’s in-house production team, (over working with another production house) is that for royalty share projects, the aggregator is already getting a cut of the profits, so you may not have to give them an added percentage for producing your audiobook (which you would likely have to do when working with any other production house). But you should check this for yourself before entering into any arrangement.

Audiobook production is usually paid in one of four ways:

  1. Rate per finished audio hour (PFH).
    A set rate for each hour of finished audio of the audiobook, usually paid with a deposit up front, and the balance upon completion. In Australia, typical PFH rates for fully-finished, retail-ready audiobook files are between AUD$300 and AUD$400 per finished audio hour. The number of words per audio hour is usually estimated at 9300 words, so a 50K word novel should cost between AUD$1600 and AUD$2150, depending on the PFH rate and how many hours the audiobook ends up being.
  2. Royalty Share (RS).
    No upfront cost to the author, and the narrator receives nothing up front for their labour or the cost of outsourcing any tasks such as edit/proof/master. Then the narrator and author share the profits from sale royalties 50/50.
  3. Royalty Share Plus (RS+), also known as a Hybrid Deal.
    A (modest) amount per finished audio hour is paid to the narrator, ostensibly to assist with edit/proof/mastering costs, and the narrator and author share the profits from sales royalties 50/50. In Australia, typical PFH rates for the ‘Plus’ part of Royalty Share Plus range from AUD$75 to $200. There is also a version of this provided by one of the aggregators (Findaway Voices) where the price paid is half the PFH cost, and the narrator is paid 20% of the royalty profits.
  4. Royalty Deferred
    No upfront cost to the author, but the narrator is paid all the profits from sale proceeds until the full amount the narrator would have received PFH is paid out; after which time the author receives 100% of the sales proceeds. (As at July 21, this method is only offered by one aggregator – Audiobooks Unleashed Distribution.)

Although there are four different pricing structures, the ones that are open to you may depend on the aggregator you choose and on the likelihood of your audiobook selling well. Audiobook production is labour-intensive, so most experienced narrators are reluctant to enter into royalty share deals unless there is a good likelihood of making back the time and money they’ve invested within a year. So they look for projects where the author’s ebooks are selling well; the author has a loyal fan base; and the author pays for advertising to help sell their work. If a project doesn’t look like it will make back the PFH cost within a year or so, then the author may need to sweeten the deal by either paying up front, or mitigating the narrator’s risk by putting at least some money into production to change the deal from a straight Royalty Share deal into Royalty Share Plus (also known as a Hybrid deal).

In Australia, expect to pay

  • PFH – $300 to $400 AUD ($250 to $350 USD) per finished audio hour for audiobook production.
  • Hybrid – $75 to $150 PFH plus 50/50 royalties for audiobook production, provided your audiobook has a reasonable chance of some sale.
  • Royalty Share – nothing, but it may be difficult to find a large pool of narrators to choose from unless you can demonstrate a good likelihood of your audiobook selling at least 1000 copies within 2 years. Newer narrators may be happy to narrate your audiobook without a sales history; but it’s up to each narrator whether they have the time available to invest.

Dual narration, duet narration, multi-cast or sound effects inclusion will all add to the cost. The most cost-effective forma is usually a single narrator, employed directly by the author.

Why is the PFH cost so expensive? Audiobook production is labour-intensive, with each finished hour of audio taking 6 to 8 hours to produce.

No matter who you choose as your aggregator, you will have the choice of either a higher royalty percentage at Amazon, Audible and iTunes if you agree to go ‘exclusive’ with those retailers (so your audiobook available at Amazon, Audible and iTunes only) or a lower royalty rate for sales at Amazon, Audible and iTunes, but your audiobook available in many more venues (including libraries) if you go non-exclusive (aka ‘wide’).

Note that if you go exclusive, you can’t sell your audiobook on your website (unless the sale goes through Amazon) or at book fairs or conferences.

Which is better – wide or exclusive? That’s a choice you have to make. Five years ago, almost everyone went exclusive. Now, with better aggregator deals which include library borrows, CD sales and 50 or more retail outlets and borrowing/subscription markets, many authors and narrators are choosing to go wide. In addition, many aggregators will put your ‘wide’ audiobook as ‘exclusive’ for the first few months, and then automatically change it to wide after a set amount of time, which can give you the best of both worlds.

Note that if you want your audiobook produced with a royalty share component, this may impact whether or not you can sell wide, depending on which aggregator you choose. This is because some aggregators are just aggregators and not audiobook producers, and you must come to them with your audiobook already produced. Others can help you produce your audiobook (for a price!), or can provide an online dashboard where you and your narrator producer can self-manage production yourselves, ticking each task off as it is completed, until final approval is given, and the work is sent to the retail markets. As you can see, many of these entities wear multiple hats and have different services they offer. I’m hoping by the end of this, you’ll understand who can provide what, and which service is likely to suit your situation and budget best.

Although audiobooks generally are priced much dearer than ebooks, you’ll lose a significant amount of your audiobook’s sales price to other parties. In general, unless you can sell direct to your listeners, expect to receive 20% to 40% of the sales price of your audiobook (or half that amount if you are in a 50/50 royalty share deal with your narrator).

If your sale is through Amazon, Audible or iTunes, the retailer will generally take between 60 and 75% of the price your audiobook sold for. If you’re selling wide, then other retailers typically take around 50%. The remainder will then be split according to the contract percentages between any other parties. These other parties include any aggregator other than ACX that you might use to help distribute your audiobooks (aggregator/distributors usually take 20% commission of the amount that the retailer sends then, which is itself only 25% to 50% of the price the audiobook sold for); plus if you’ve done a royalty share deal then you’ll be sharing profits with your narrator; and if you’ve produced your audiobook through a production house, they also may take a cut.

Be aware that many audiobooks that sell through Amazon and Audible don’t sell for the full list price. For instance, if an audiobook is ‘bought’ with an Audible subscriber’s monthly credit, the royalty you’ll receive will be as though the audiobook sold for around $15, regardless of the nominal list price of the audiobook. Similarly, if the audiobook is purchased by an Audible subscriber, they receive a member discount of 30%, so the book’s sale price will be 70% of its list price. And savvy audiobook listeners know they can buy audiobooks at a significant discount if they also buy (or already own) the corresponding ebook. So listeners can buy audiobooks at Amazon in conjunction with the ebook, giving the audiobook a massive discount. For example, the audiobook for this book at Amazon is $17.99, but on the book’s Kindle page, you can buy the ebook and audiobook together for $11.50 – that’s over a third off full price and the listener gets both ebook and audiobook. (Authors don’t lose out too much, as they get the benefit of an ebook sale at the same time; whereas a narrator in a royalty share deal for that audiobook loses out heavily on that transaction!). So take these discounted prices into consideration when estimating your profits from audiobooks or any calculations of how many sales it will take to pay back a PFH outlay.

How many sales can you expect? Five to ten years ago, various author forums stated the usual estimate of audiobooks sold was one audiobook sale for every 10 ebook sales. I’ve no idea whether that estimate still holds. But when estimating how much you’ll gain in revenue for each audiobook sale, find a book similar to yours on Audible (similar length and genre – don’t forget you can estimate the length of your audiobook by dividing your manuscript by 9300 words to get the approx number of hours in your finished audiobook).

My personal experience – Royalties are generally 20% to 40% of the book’s sales price – half that if you have to split royalties with a narrator. Royalties of audiobooks I’ve narrated can be anywhere from 90 cents to $4.50 (depending on length of book, retailer and whether the book was bought at Amazon in conjunction with the ebook – which is a huge lose-out for narrators!), so I generally estimate a royalty return of $2.50 to 3.50 per audiobook sale. With the ease to market of audiobooks making the market increasingly crowded, I’m seeing the most consistent sales of audiobooks which I’ve narrated coming from those authors who engage in paid advertising – for example, Amazon ads. The audiobook seems to sell well only when the ebook sells well, so advertising the ebook can often be the best way to sell the audiobook. Unfortunately, due to the overcrowded market, the necessity of paid advertising may be becoming a reality. I am seeing some sales ‘wide’ though, which is encouraging (and I suspect it’s because those markets aren’t quite so crowded, though each royalty amount is generally lower through those ‘wide’ markets than through the exclusive ones).

Provided you own the manuscript and audiobook production rights in full (i.e. provided you own the text copyright and have NOT entered into a Royalty Share deal with your narrator over the audiobook production), you are free to sell the audiobook however you wish – unless you enter into an ‘exclusive’ contract to sell only through specific retail channels. Increasingly, I’m hearing of authors who own their audiobook rights outright selling direct to the public (for instance from their website or via Facebook advertising) to keep around 95% or more of the book’s sales price themselves. This is a far cry from the 20% to 50% provided if sold through other retail channels, like Amazon, Audible, Kobo, etc.

Rights holders can sell direct to the public by providing a sales link on their own website, newsletter, facebook ads etc. The sales link takes the listener to an online shopfront where they can purchase the audiobook and have it delivered to them, usually by a third-party audiobook listening app. Many authors use BookFunnel to do this. Other services include Glassboxx.com and MySoundwise.com. (Glassboxx is UK-based and very professional. AppSumo has a good lifetime special to join MySoundWise if you decide on that avenue instead). A number of these services also allow you to make your own discount codes; give away copies of the audiobook; and have great reporting services and dashboards to track your sales. Some even allow you to also sell your ebook direct, again for all the profits!

Some of these services are subscription based (like BookFunnel), some are a one-off fee (MySoundWise through their AppSumo deal) and some take a percentage from each sale – but it’s around 5%, compared to losing 50% to 75% as you do when selling through online retailers.

Usually this is only done for non-exclusive titles where the author owns the audiobooks rights outright (so they have paid their narrator up front Per Finished Audio Hour for audiobook production). Theoretically, though, you could sell titles direct to the public even under royalty share – provided there are no exclusive contracts signed with retailers or distributors, but it would require you and your narrator to make a private arrangement to divide up the royalties each month/quarter between you, since none of the direct selling channels can currently accommodate splitting payments between two parties. So it would mean one of you would receive the money each month, and would have to divide it up and provide written report to the other, which would mean your narrator placing a very large amount of trust in you. But it is an option for author/narrator partnerships built on trust and ongoing work. I’d suggest you’d also want a written contract to protect both yourself and the narrator if you enter into this sort of payment structure.

As mentioned earlier, the aggregator is the entity that sends your audiobook to retailers and collects and collates payments and sales reports on your behalf. They are the link between you and the retailer. (They are the KDP, Draft2Digital or Smashwords of the audiobook world.) You will need to choose an aggregator to get your audiobook to market, so let’s look at the main ones and their pros and cons.

The biggest aggregator is ACX.com (the Audiobook Creation Exchange). ACX is Amazon’s self-publishing arm for audiobooks. (Think of ACX as ‘KDP for audiobooks’.) ACX helps narrators and authors find each other; it manages author/narrator contracts; it gives the parties a platform and dashboard to upload and approve the files of an audiobook; it distributes that audiobook to Amazon, Audible and iTunes; it collects payment from royalties; and distributes those payments each month to the author, (or to the author and narrator, if the audiobook has a royalty share component).

But ACX is not open to authors or narrators unless they reside in USA, Canada, UK or Ireland. And ACX can only sell to Amazon, Audible and iTunes, so if you have a non-exclusive contract with ACX and wish to sell to other retailers, you will need to upload your audio to another aggregator to get it to the additional ‘wide’ retailers.

Even though ACX is not open to Australian and NZ authors/narrators, it’s worth understanding the ACX royalty model, because the other aggregators generally provide you with ACX-equivalent royalty options for all sales through Amazon, Audible and iTunes (albeit you’ll have to pay them a commission).

So for an ‘exclusive’ deal with Amazon, Audible and iTunes, the retailer will deduct 60% of the price of each audiobook sold, leaving 40% (termed the ‘net royalties’) to be disbursed between the other parties (i.e. between the aggregator and the author; or the aggregator, author and narrator if it’s a royalty share deal).

For a ‘non-exclusive’ deal (i.e. if you want to sell your audiobook ‘wide’), the retailer will deduct 75% of the price of each audiobook sold at Amazon, Audible or iTunes, leaving 25% (the ‘net royalties’) to be disbursed between the other parties (aggregator, author, and narrator if it’s royalty share). So you’ll lose a significant amount of the sales price to your retailer (60 to 75% if your sale is through Amazon, Audible or iTunes, and typically 50% if it’s any other retailer). Then the remainder will be split according to agreed percentages between the other parties – aggregator, author and (for royalty share contracts), the narrator.

For a long time, Australian and New Zealand authors (and narrators) have lamented that we can’t access ACX (thus not being able to easily find narrators for royalty share projects), but in the last two years some great alternatives have cropped up, for royalty share and PFH; exclusive and wide distribution. Below I’ve listed the ones I know, and their pros and cons. There’s also a table which details royalty percentages for each aggregator under wide/exclusive and royalty share/PFH circumstances.

Note that not all aggregators can provide all services, (for instance, ACX cannot do royalty share and wide simultaneously), so make sure you read through all the notes and visit each aggregator’s website before making any decisions.

Also, if you’re going with an experienced narrator, use them as a knowledge resource; many of them have experience with multiple platforms and aggregators, and can advise on which might best suit your situation, and where the industry is currently at.

Run by US narrator Sarah Puckett, Pink Flamingo Distribution appears to be one of the best choices at present for a great value, well-organised distribution service for those in Australia or New Zealand (or any other country that can’t use ACX.com). They can handle royalty share payments for both wide and exclusive deals (ACX can only do royalty share for exclusive deals!).

Over the past few years, I’ve watched Sarah expand her business from a one-man band of romance narration to a multi-pronged, multi-staffed, multi-genre operation. She forges great alliances with industry stakeholders and has gone from strength to strength, including organising her own yearly online narrator conference. Pink Flamingo are well worth a look, particularly if you are unable to use ACX.com.

If you wish to use their distribution services alone (i.e. use them as a conduit to get to ACX.com, for instance), then you’ll need to find your narrator yourself and come to them with a finished project. I believe they can also provide full-service production if you wish, but I’m unaware of the details or costs.

Their aggregator/distributor commission is 20% (same as most of the others), however if you’ve paid your narrator up front, then it appears their commission is only 15% commission for ‘exclusive’ distribution. Pink Flamingo pays out royalties quarterly. You can also elect for your audiobook to be ‘exclusive’ for at least 90 days, then decide to go ‘wide’ if you wish.

Pink Flamingo Productions also approach authors and purchase rights for books they feel are suitable for their brand.

Summary – Pink Flamingo appear a great choice, with plenty of options and flexibility for Aussies and Kiwis. They have comparable royalty rates, but appear more organised and provide better communication (at present, at least) than Audiobooks Unleashed or Spoken Realms. Unlike Spoken Realms, you get to choose any narrator anywhere if you use them, though you’ll have to find your narrator yourself (plenty of details on how to do that further down this page).

Voices of Today is run by two Australian narrators, Denis Daley in Perth and Sarah Bacaller in Melbourne. Although the company is an audiobook production house, it is run almost as a narrator co-op, with a global network of several hundred narrators collaborating on various projects over time. Originally concentrating on public domain titles, including multi-narrator projects, they now also produce contemporary manuscripts. Their benefit to authors/narrators is their access to significant international distribution channels, which provides a conduit for Aussies/NZers to access international distribution juggernauts.

For distribution services, Voices of Today act as a gateway and payment distributor for other aggregator/distributors. They can handle royalty share payments in any ratio (so you could do a duet narration as royalty share, for instance), and they can distribute ‘exclusive’ or ‘wide’. As they are a conduit to other aggregators, you have a choice between distributing through Findaway Voices, Audiobooks Unleashed, Spoken Realms or Blackstone Audio. Independent audiobook producer Blackstone is their latest partnership, and this puts significant marketing power at their fingertips, particularly for ‘wide’ distribution. Blackstone is a juggernaut of audiobook production in the USA, and markets intensively to its library network, as well as via other avenues.

Voices of Today can work with PFH, RS+ or royalty share projects, and are interested in working with both new and established authors.

If you source your narrator yourself, you can bring your finished project to Voices of Today for distribution, for which they will take a commission of 10 to 20%. Voices of Today pay quarterly via Paypal in Australian dollars (saving Aussie authors the hassle of receiving payments in USD as you do from most other distributor/aggregators).

Voices of today are also a full-service production house, if you want to hand the reins to someone else for production. Their narrator network has over 200 narrators globally. As the company is Australia-based, they have access to numerous Australian narrators, and are positioned to understand the nuances of Aussie/NZ pronunciation, history and culture.

I’ve worked with Voices Of Today (on group, duet and solo projects), and in 2021 I was invited to become part of their associate team (though I have no financial interest in the company). I joined because I admire their ideals of helping indie authors find a cost-effective path to audio, as well as helping mentor upcoming narrators. They also have a vibrant online narrator forum where narrators share projects and resources.

Summary: Voices of Today are a highly viable option for authors wanting access to international distribution – particularly for those needing someone to handle royalty share payment splitting, including for ‘wide’ distribution. If your work is likely to be mass-appeal, then their access to Blackstone Audio for wide distribution may provide favourable returns from library sales in particular, since Blackstone’s marketing to libraries is top notch (something you likely won’t get from other distributors). As with most others, you will lose a percentage in commission to Voices of Today. Bearing this in mind, you may be better off going direct to your aggregator of choice, rather than slotting another party in the chain by using Voices of Today. If you’re going to distribute through Spoken Realms or Audiobooks Unleashed, then you may as well go direct to them and cut out the Voices of Today commission. If you want to distribute through Findaway Voices, then you may as well go direct too, unless you need to split and distribute the royalty share payments, in which case Voices of Today will do that for you. Voices of Today will give you multiple options though, as they distribute to more than one aggregators, plus they are a great conduit to Blackstone Audio, and they are also a fantastic resource for first-time audiobook author/narrator and can help you every step of the way.

Findaway Voices are an aggregator/distributor. They used to have a hybrid royalty share system called Findaway Voices Share, but I can’t find any information on it today (Aug 2023). Instead, they now have Findaway Voices MarketPlace which is their version of ACX.com, where you can list your own audition, select your narrator and manage your production yourself, then distribute through Findaway Voices.

Findaway only distributes ‘wide’. There is no ‘exclusive’ option to select for a higher royalty return.

Findaway are a solid and popular choice, and run a streamlined, helpful operation, but I do have a couple of concerns with them. Firstly, they are now owned by Spotify. This raises some alarm-bells, after what Spotify has done to the earnings of smaller musicians’ on their site, (but I guess there’s no fighting progress!) I do see that they now waive their 20% commission for audiobook sales through Spotify, which is good. My concern is if/when they change audiobooks on Spotify to a ‘subscription’ model, where authors and narrators may end up with less revenue and less control, unless they are mid-list or high sellers.

My second concern is how little you can find any details of costs, percentages, royalties, lock-in contracts etc, on their website until AFTER you sign up to make an account with them. I find this scary, since if you look at the Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions during their account-creation / sign-up process (or this is what it looked like last time I looked!), you’re signing away a lot of your control. They can ‘sell’ your details to third-parties; they can decide to distribute your audiobooks to ‘third-party distribution channels’ without checking with you first; they can change the price of your audiobook without your permission, etc. There was also a whole huge kafuffle some time ago when their fine print contained a clause about using submitted material for “machine learning”. (Most narrators draw the line at signing the rights of their voices away, particularly to any system that might help the progress of AI-generated voices.)

Findaway used to act as a production house and manage all aspects production for you. They appear to have moved away from that model and now have a production model similar to ACX.com. There are two ways you can now use them:

1. Findaway as your aggregator

You upload finished, retail-ready audio files (typically produced by you working directly with a narrator and paying your narrator PFH) and then use Findaway as your aggregator. This means you’ll need to find your own narrator and work with them to produce finished, retail-ready audio files. You will need to pay your narrator PFH, because Findaway will not be able to split payments between more than one royalty recipient (the alternative is if you go through a third party who will do the split for you from Findaway. You can do this via Voices of Today or Audiobooks Unleashed, but it will cost you a further 10 to 20% of income. Or you may be able to make an arrangement with your narrator to pay them half each month/quarter if you have a trusting enough working relationship);

Findaway are good aggregaters. They take 20% of the net royalty payments (the net royalty is the price the audiobook sold at, less the amount the retailer deducts as their cut). And they waive that 20% fee for sales on their Spotify platform, meaning you will receive 50% of the price the audiobook sells for at Spotify (at present). With Findaway Voices distribution, you used to be able to sell your audiobooks direct on Authors Direct, but Authors Direct has been closed in favour of Spotify. You will receive Spotify promotional codes to promote your audiobook.

Findaway distributes to at least 34 retail outlets, including Audible, Amazon, iTunes, OverDrive, Findaway, Chirp, Scribd, Kobo, Downpour, Hoopla, GooglePlay and AudiobooksNZ.

I believe payments are still monthly, but you have to be owed at least $100 before you get paid; otherwise payments are held over until you trigger that $100 payment threshold. For those outside the USA, the cheapest form of payment from FV will be Paypal, but it is by no means cheap! Just like Spoken Realms and Authors Republic, Findaway Voice pays via Paypal, so you’ll lose an additional 6 to 8% of your royalties to Paypal between it leaving Findaway and ending up in your local currency in your local country. (Paypal takes 3.6% for international commercial payments plus currency conversions use exchange rates set 4% above the mid-market currency exchange rate. Paypal is a very expensive way to receive international funds.)

2. Findaway MarketPlace (similar ACX.com)

I’ve not yet produced an audiobook through Findaway Marketplace, although I have a profile listed on the site. I believe it allows rights’ holders to list an audition, approach narrators, etc, similar to ACX.com. It is a place where you can make contact with narrators, and have a dashboard to manage your project, but it will mean you are locked into distribution through Findaway Voices, so bear that in mind. (Using AussieNarrator.com and/or NarratorList.com is an alternative way to list auditions and contact narrators without being locked into any one distributor/aggregator.)

Once you’ve used Findaway MarketPlace to source your narrator and produce your audiobook, then you’ll be using Findaway as an Aggregator, so all the information in Point 1 above then applies.

Spoken Realms is a long-term aggregator run by highly-respected US narrator, Steven Jay Cohen. As well as a full-service production arm, Spoken Realms has a curated list of narrators to choose from, ensuring your production is in safe and experienced hands. Projects can be exclusive (Targeted Distribution) or wide (Global Distribution), as well as royalty share, royalty share plus or paid up front. Just like Audiobooks Unleashed, Spoken Realms can split royalties in any ratio you wish and between any number of parties you like. Royalties from multiple distributors are forwarded quarterly.

Spoken Realms can arrange all aspects of production for you (i.e. a full-service production house) but I am unaware of the cost of details of how this works. The work that I know them for is provision of contracts and a production dashboard where author and narrator can self-manage their own audiobook production. Then once production is complete, Spoken Realms works as the aggregator for the finished audiobook. There is no charge for using Spoken Realms in this way for self-managed production, and they then receive a cut of the royalties forwarded from retailers. The deal Spoken Realms has with its retail partners prevents its royalty rates being listed publicly, however its rates are reasonable and between the highest and lowest aggregator on our list. You can email Spoken Realms to inquire about rates.

Narrators usually come to Spoken Realms with a project already in place, (so if you wish to use Spoken Realms, a first port of call might be to contact some of the narrators who are listed as ‘Featured Voices’ on the Spoken Realms website, to find a narrator to partner with). Spoken Realms is also able to partner you with a narrator themselves if they take on your project as an in-house production.

After a project is set up, online contracts are provided, as well as a dashboard where narrator and author can track production progress and royalty payments.

Spoken Realms’ Global Distribution (i.e. wide) automatically includes an initial period of 12 weeks of Audible exclusivity (giving you higher royalties during this time, as the retailer’s cut is reduced during Audible exclusivity). After this time, your audiobook will start to appear in other retail outlets. There are at least 46 retailers, including Audible, Amazon, iTunes, OverDrive, Findaway, Chirp, Scribd, Kobo, Downpour, Hoopla, GooglePlay and AudiobooksNZ!

Their website states that with Global Distribution, you can also receive free 50 Downpour promotional codes so you can give away rent copies of your audiobook to gain reviews, and Spoken Realms can arrange for CDs to be available to you at a reduced cost. Their website also lists a distribution model that includes ‘wide’ distribution plus streaming (so your audiobook could be monetised via youtube, podcasts and Audible).

Numerous narrators that I know distribute ‘exclusive’ through Spoken Realms. When I examined their ‘wide’ distribution, I didn’t find the numbers stacked up very well. I believe their ‘wide’ distribution partner takes a hefty percentage, though they do have good marketing strategies. I have heard, anecdotally, that Spoken Realms doesn’t really push it’s ‘wide’ distribution and appears to favour ‘exclusive’. Projects are largely managed by the narrators themselves, and the dashboard doesn’t provide a lot of project information or insight. You receive a quarterly report with your royalty payment, but it doesn’t give information on what price each sale was worth, only what the ‘net receipts’ were, so it’s hard to calculate exactly what percentage Spoken Realms is taking, and my emails to the proprietor to clarify have not provided any insight.

Spoken Realms pay via Paypal, so budget to lose an additional 6 to 8% of royalties unless you reside in the USA. (Paypal takes 3.6% for international commercial payments plus currency conversions use exchange rates set 4% above the mid-market currency exchange rate. Paypal is a very expensive way to receive international funds.) I believe Spoken Realms do not have a payment threshold, so you will be paid each quarter, regardless of the amount you are owed.

Summary – Spoken Realms is solid and dependable choice, having a long track-record within the industry. They offer similar royalty rates as other distributor/aggregators. If you’re happy to go with one of the narrators on their list, they’re a great choice, and they have a curated pool of hand-picked narrators to choose from, (rather than taking a chance on someone whose pedigree is unknown). But you are generally limited to using one of the narrators on their books, and it may not be possible to bring your own narrator to them (though you could ask, I guess). As they pay through Paypal, budget to lose around 7.6% of your payment amounts to Paypal’s international currency conversion ‘fees’. I’ve worked through Spoken Realms. They’re very ‘hands-off’, their dashboard provides scant information and is a bit dated, so don’t expect a lot of hand-holding if you feel you might be out of your depth.

Respected audiobook publisher, Dreamscape Publishing, has a Distribution Only offering called Dreamscape Select, which has very favourable royalty rates. Their commission appears to be only 15% (which is 5% less than most other distributor/aggregators). I don’t know a lot about them and have not yet used them myself, so can’t offer a lot of advice.

If you are considering using them, you may with to check with them whether they are able to do physical sales (CD sales) and library sales/borrows, as this can account for a proportion of revenue. Depending on what you wish to publish, you may also need to check if they distribute public domain titles and if they can accommodate splitting of payment for royalty share contracts.

Dreamscape would be for distribution only, so you’d need to come to them with your finished audiobook files ready to go. So you’d need to find your narrator yourself and then bring the project to Dreamscape. Experienced narrators should be able to help you do this or offer advice. Working via a distributor production dashboard (such as you have at ACX or Findaway Marketplace) has only minor differences from having a narrator manage the production process themselves and communicating with you via email and uploaded files for you to listen to, so provided both parties are trustworthy, production can be accomplished, prior to approaching a distributor with finished retail-ready audio files.

Though I’ve yet to use them myself, I like what I’ve heard so far of Dreamscape. They can be found at Dreamscape Select.

(As a matter of interest, I believe Scribd used to have a similar distribution deal, but it seems now they have partnered up with Findaway Voices for their audiobook distribution.)

The brain-child of US narrator Sarah Sampino, Audiobooks Unleashed Distribution was such a breath of fresh air when it appeared on the scene a number of years ago. We all had high hopes for it, as it provided the most flexible options and originally took the lowest commission of any of the aggregators available to non-ACX-ratified countries. Over time, though, they have lost a bit of their shine, and I’ve heard from numerous sources (as well as experienced myself) that communication can be poor, with emails left weeks before answering, etc. It’s such a pity because this was my favourite choice for the first year of so of operation.

Audiobooks Unleashed can work with royalty share, royalty share plus, paid up front (paid Per Finished audio Hour) and Deferred Payments. Deferred Payments are new option pioneered by Audiobooks Unleashed where an authors pays nothing for audiobook production, but then forfeits royalties until the narrator has been paid out in full for production from the royalty payments that come from sales. Audiobooks Unleashed is also one of the few aggregators which can split royalty share payments across more than 2 parties (eg, for dual or duet narrations) and also in any ratio the parties wish. This is something that ACX can’t do! In addition, Audiobooks Unleashed can work with exclusive or wide projects.

Audiobooks Unleashed also state they provide full-service production (casting, engineering etc), but my anecdotal and personal experience with them is of projects where author and narrator have found each other first, then gone to Audiobooks Unleashed to use their dashboard for production, and then distribute through them. So an author and narrator will come to Audiobooks Unleashed together ready to make an audiobook as partners. They create a project at Audiobooks Unleashed, are given a online contract that clearly states both their responsibilities and the royalties they’ll receive, and then both parties have a dashboard where they can tick off each task as it’s completed. Once all is done, the book goes through a quick quality check and is then sent off to retail markets. Audiobooks Unleashed collates payments and pays out royalties quarterly, though there is a payment threshold (of either $50 or $100 USD – I forget which) before you will receive payment. The sales reports they send out with the payments are comprehensive and provide more detail than those sent by Spoken Realms (they let you know what price the audiobooks sold for at each retailer).

Sarah also runs the website AudiobooksUnleashed.com which helps authors and narrators find listeners for their promo codes and gain reviews for their work.

Like most others, Audiobooks Unleashed do not charge any up-front fees, and instead take a commission of 20% of ‘net receipts’ (the amount that the retailer sends them).

Their ‘wide’ distribution includes more than 50 retailers and libraries, such as Audible, Amazon, iTunes, Nook, Scribd, Kobo, Downpour, Hoopla, GooglePlay – even AudiobooksNZ!  They also offer a service where you audiobook can be exclusive for six months, and then made non-exclusive after a minimum of six months.

Payment is paid in US dollars via Wise.com (formerly TransferWise.com), easily withdrawn to your local bank account. This is one of the most cost-effective ways to receive international payments (actually the cheapest way that I’ve found), with currency conversion ratios held at mid-market rates and a small transparent withdrawal fee incorporated (unlike Paypal which charges ‘hidden’ fees of 7.6% to receive funds internationally.)

Summary – Audiobooks Unleashed used to be my favourite choice for Aussies and Kiwis. They had the best royalty rates and flexible options for royalty share ratios and being able to do royalty share and ‘wide’ simultaneously. They have a $50 payment threshold (as opposed to Findaway’s $100 threshold). I’ve worked through Audiobooks Unleashed. When Audiobooks Unleashed started, Sarah was a dynamo of energy and was full of refreshing, bright ideas, intent on making audiobook production attainable to more people through flexible payment arrangements. However over the past 18 months, things appear to have slipped a bit, with multiple reports of emails not being replied to in a timely fashion, etc, which is such a pity. Hopefully, things will get back on track soon.

– Authors Republic

Authors Republic’s cut of the remainder left over after each retailer takes their cut, is 30%, which is 10% more than most of the other aggregators listed. At the time I’m writing this, Authors Republic’s website states “You’ll receive 70% of what your audiobook earns” but rights’ holders should keep in mind that is NOT 70% of the book’s selling price; but rather 70% of the amount the aggregator receives after the retailer takes their 50% to 75% cut of the selling price (so the percentage is applied to the remainder or ‘net royalty’). I feel Authors Republic should make this clear on their website, as anyone new to audiobooks may erroneously imagine they will receive 70% of each audiobook sale.

As with any aggregator, Authors Republic may have access to additional retail or subscription channels that others do not, or have other added value that listing with them provides. So it’s not always as simple as comparing commission rates only. In addition, the details (including exact percentages) of the royalty rate agreements each aggregator has with its retailers (so the percentage the retailer takes before sending the remainder or ‘net royalty’ to the aggregator) are individually negotiated and generally not made public. So without knowing the exact amount each retailer with take, you can’t accurately determine the exact royalty you’ll receive from the sale of your audiobook at any retailer, which makes it impossible to accurately compare returns from each aggregator. The only information we have is usually the commission percentage the aggregator takes (not the ‘net royalty’ percentage they receive from the retailer), and Authors Republic take a 30% commission after the retailer has taken their 50-plus percent of the price at which your audiobook sold. A commission (on the ‘net royalties’) of 30% is higher than most other aggregators. What you need to do is weigh up whether the advantages of aggregating with Authors Republic justifies losing that extra 10%. They may be a great fit for you, depending on your project and your individual needs.

With Authors Republic, your audiobook can reach over 50 online retailers, libraries, subscription services and streaming platforms.

Currently Authors Republic is an aggregator only and cannot help you make an audiobook or provide a portal where author and narrator can self-manage production. They do have relationships with several production houses, and can steer you towards professionals who can help produce your audiobook. Otherwise, you must go to Authors Republic after your audio files have been produced, and upload fully-finished retail-ready audio (which also means you can’t do royalty share with Authors Republic; it has to be PFH only). Located in Canada, they have a smaller team than many of the other aggregators, which may provide a more personalised and ’boutique’ service with hands-on help and faster response times, as well as more individualised communication. This may mean they can help those new to audiobook production through the process, providing additional guidance, compared to some of the larger aggregators.

Authors Republic pay monthly, but they pay via Paypal, so if you’re outside the USA, expect losses of a further 6 to 8%, due to Paypal’s international ‘fees’. (3.6% for Paypal international commercial payments plus another 4% due to currency conversions with an exchange rate 4% above the mid-market rate. As stated previously, Paypal is an expensive way to receive international funds.)

My opinion / experience – I have not worked with Authors Republic, and when I wrote the initial version of this page, I had no information apart from what I could find online. A member of the Authors Republic team has since contacted me. She explained it’s a friendly workplace of like-minded people who are passionate about what they do, efficient and responsive, and particularly committed to providing individualised and exceptional customer service. They regularly help those unfamiliar with audiobook production through the process, including providing advice and guidance on getting audio files up to retailer specification. I got the impression they are focussed on continual improvement, with changes in the wind which will further assist authors in audiobook production. Their commission is 10% higher than most of the others on the list, but they may provide additional advantages, and it may be worth reaching out to them to find out what they can offer that other can’t. As with choosing any aggregator, weigh up the pros and cons, run your numbers, consider how hands-on you want to be, and if possible, talk to others who’ve worked with them, before making your decision.

Summary:

  • Pink Flamingo Productions, Voices of Today, Spoken Realms, Findaway Voices and Audiobooks Unleashed, all allow wide or exclusive distribution; have no geographical limitations and allow you to distribute wide or exclusive with or without royalty share splitting. Some of these also have an online portal/dashboard where you and your chosen narrator can manage audiobook production. Others you (or you and your narrator) take the finished audio files to them.
  • Generally most places take 20% commission after they receive ‘net receipts’ from each retailer. Then they forward the remaining 80% of ‘net receipts’ to you (or to you and the narrator for royalty share). Net receipts means the amount that is left from each sale after the retailer takes their cut, which is usually 50 to 75% of the price the audiobook sells for. So expect to receive royalty of 20% to 40% of the price that each audiobook sold for, assuming you only have one aggregator/distributor in the chain between you and the retailer.
  • Voices of Today is run by two Australians, who have a broad narrator pool to draw from, and are very receptive to helping authors and narrators negotiate their way through audiobook production. They have distribution pathways to numerous aggregators, including Blackstone Audio, Findaway Voices, Spoken Realms and Audiobooks Unleashed. They can advise you on which aggregator/distributor to use, but depending on which aggregator/distributor you wish to use, you may be able to go to the same distributor direct and save having to pay an extra commission (unless you need someone to split royalties for you for a ‘wide’ distribution deal or unless you want to distribute through Blackstone Audio, which is not available for direct author access).
  • Audiobooks Unleashed is the only aggregator on our list who pay by Wise rather than Paypal. If you’re outside the USA, this can save you additional fees in getting your money from USD into your local currency/bank account. (Note: I’m not sure how Pink Flamingo pays.) Voices of Today pay in Australian dollars via Paypal, so that saves you from the hassle of receiving funds in USD.
  • Findaway Voices have Spotify promo code and Chirp advantages, but they are now owned by Spotify, and I have fears this means you give away some of your control when you distribute with them. Their 20% commission is waived for sales through Spotify though, so that should bump your royalties up, for sales on Spotify at least. I’m unaware at present of what market share Spotify has for audiobooks, but it will likely increase as time goes by (I predict it will become increasingly cost effective for listeners – particularly if Spotify adopt a subscription-based listening model – which might not be so good for authors/narrators in the long-term, but there’s not much we can do about that, as the listener ultimately decides where to listen!).
  • Author’s Republic appear to take the largest commission, but each retailer’s deal with each aggregator is individually negotiated and not generally made public, so it’s impossible to accurately compare aggregators to work out your likely returns when you don’t know exactly how much cut each retailer will take through each aggregator. Despite the higher commission, as a ’boutique’ aggregator, Authors Republic may offer other advantages, and they should form part of your research when considering who to partner with for aggregation.

So what does all this mean in terms of profits? How much do you get paid per audiobook sale?

NOTE – The information in the Royalty Comparison was up-to-date in 2019. There have been a number of changes since that time and the table should be used as a guide only, and authors/narrators should check to see if commissions have changed since that time.
Visit the Royalty Comparison page for a filterable comparison of how the different options stack up.

If you’re producing your audiobook through an aggregator’s production house, they’ll manage the process for you and should provide everything you need.

But if you want to partner with either a specialist production house or work directly with a narrator, you’ll need to choose who to use. A list of production houses follows:

Why use a Production House?

Production Houses generally provide a cost-effective method of having an experienced team project-manage your audiobook production. They’re a great choice for first-time audiobook authors or for those who don’t want the worry of casting or attending to other details (such as cover art) themselves. Prices vary greatly, with some being exceptional value and others not (though often still cheaper than using an aggregator production arm). They often provide added value through access to extra marketing or other assistance, as well as the brand recognition of having your audiobook under a branded banner.

As well as being able to be used for distribution/aggregation (see above) Voices of Today can also produce your audiobook for you. They are a global audiobook production company based in Australia, with a network of narrators around the world. Originally concentrating on public domain titles, they now produce contemporary manuscripts, and have the resources and contacts to do dual/duet and multi-narrator projects. They can produce your audiobook as paid up front, as well as explore options for royalty share and royalty share projects. They are interested in working with both new and established authors.

As the company is Australian (co-owned by two Australian narrators), they have access to numerous Australian narrators, and are positioned to understand the nuances of Aussie/NZ pronunciation, history and culture. For PFH projects, they can invoice in Australian dollars (saving you currency conversion fees). Voices of Today are very supportive of local authors, and happy to provide personalised service to guide first-time audiobook authors through the process of production. They’ve a reputation for mentoring new narrators, and their long history of public domain productions means they have the industry contacts to open overseas doors, with a proven willingness to help narrators advance their careers.

I admire their ideals of helping indie authors find a cost-effective path to audio, as well as helping mentor upcoming narrators.

Though Voices of Today are fairly new to contemporary audiobook production, they’ve quickly gained ground, and are keen to cement a place in the local industry as a solid producer of quality audiobooks for a diverse author base. Their costs are currently very reasonable (though as they grow, that may change). At present, I believe they are a good choice as production partner, particularly for emerging Australian authors or anyone new to audiobook production. They can manage all aspects of production, and they aggregate through Blackstone Audio, Findaway Voices, Audiobooks Unleashed or Spoken Realms, so they can provide advice and tailor-make a distribution option for you. As with most production houses, if you’re doing a royalty share deal, you will lose a percentage of the net royalties to Voices of Today, in addition to the narrator and aggregator.

I recently found Audiobooks NZ. They appear to be an aggregator and audiobook production house, and they appear to aggregate through Findaway Voices. I have no experience with them and no knowledge of their pricing, etc. (If anyone has first-hand knowledge, please write to me via the Contact page so I can include more info here.)

Bolinda in Melbourne and Wavesound in Sydney both produce audiobooks for the trad publisher market. I have no knowledge of whether they are open to inquiries from indie authors about turning their work into audio, but they may be worth approaching. (If you have knowledge of this, let me know and I’ll include it here.) There are several other Australian ebook publishing, book marketing or audio production facilities who advertise that they can produce audiobooks. I have no knowledge of how they work or which narrators they outsource to, but they may be worth contacting. They can be found via google.

There are a number of (usually US-based) production houses that can also produce audiobooks, managing all aspects of production, from casting to final upload, including outsourcing narration to a curated list of established narrators. As with most production houses, there will be a fee for using their services for PFH projects. For royalty share projects, you will likely lose a percentage of the net royalties to the production house, (in addition to percentages for the narrator and aggregator).

Offshore production houses include:

(And as already mentioned, Voices of Today, Spoken Realms, Audiobooks Unleashed and Findaway Voices all have sections of their businesses that function as in-house production houses, so if you’re wanting to partner with someone other than directly with a narrator, these might also be worth an inquiry.) (Anyone I’ve missed? Please let me know via the Contact page)

Think about the sort of narrator your work needs – vocal age, gender, accents, etc. You can either compose an audition to list at AussieNarrator.com or on relevant narrator Facebook pages, or you can browse the narrators on websites like AussieNarrator.com and filter your list to find those whom you want to contact or invite to audition.

Advertise your project on the Auditions page of AussieNarrator.com. There is no cost to do this.

Also, approach narrators yourself. Browse our narrator pages, or use the search function to narrow your search to the narrators that fit your bill, then send them an inquiry by filling in the form at the bottom of their narrator profile page at AussieNarrator.com or the global narrator database at our sister site, NarratorList.com.

Probably the largest database of narrators at present (containing all levels, from newbies to masters) is ACX.com, so if you can’t find what you need here, you could look there. Yes, Aussies and NZers can’t generally work through ACX, but that doesn’t stop you from listening to narrator samples and then trying to contact suitable narrators, via their website, facebook page, twitter account, messenger or anywhere else you can find them.

There’s also now Findaway Voices Marketplace. I’m not sure of the details, but I believe you can list your audition here, and have narrators come to you, or contact them yourself. Using Marketplace will, however, mean you have to distribute through Findaway Voices!

Work up an audition script of about 800 to 1000 words. It doesn’t have to be a continuous part of the script, so it could be broken into 2 or more scenes/sections of script, if you wish – in fact this can be beneficial if you want to hear how a narrator handles different characters/dialogue/accents or different emotions required for different scenes.  You might want to include sections so that you can hear how each prospective narrator handles different character voices or different situations, for example a love scene, an action scene, a highly emotional scene, etc. You might also want to give a little background to the characters and the scene so the narrator knows who is who or what to bring to the scene.

When you write your audition notice (or your email to narrators, if you’re approaching them directly), remember that making an audiobook is a huge undertaking. Even a modest novel of 50K will take 45 to 50 hours to produce, so you want to make your audition sound as appealing as possible to encourage narrators to apply. Be honest about the payment methods and amounts you are considering, without misrepresenting the top price you would be willing to pay the right narrator.

You and the narrator will quite possibly negotiate the final PFH amount and delivery date, but narrators need to know at least the range you’re open to paying for the right narrator, so they know whether it’s worth them applying or not.

You are allowed to have a range – afterall, you may be willing to pay one price for one narrator, but a higher price for a different narrator who has a high brand recognition which could drive sales to your book; or you might pay a higher rate if a narrator delivers your book within four weeks or a lower rate if you allow them more flexibility with a delivery date (for example, delivery date within four months), or a narrator may be willing to negotiate lower to get the job if they have a gap in their schedule. There are no hard and fast rules with rates, until you’ve both committed (at that point, you’re pretty much locked in). Narrators will want to know what sort of remuneration you are open to before auditioning. Putting a higher rate will likely get your more auditions and better narrators auditioning, but don’t misrepresent what you’re willing to pay either.

When setting a price PFH or RS+, you may be willing to pay different rates for different narrators. You have to weigh up what a narrator’s work is worth to you, considering their quality, availability, what you hear in their audition, their track record and their ability to perhaps use their reputation as a drawcard to get people to listen to your audiobook. Narrators will be doing the same thing when considering your project; whether they want to audition or not may not just depend on the rate, but also upon their availability, the likely popularity of your audiobook; their interest in the subject matter; etc.

Whether a narrator wants to take on a royalty share deal or not depends on a lot of things – how many other jobs they have to narrate, what the likelihood is of the audiobook selling well, how well the ebook appears to be selling on Amazon, any plans or marketing campaigns the author may have for the audiobook, the length of the manuscript (a 50K RS project is a lot less of a gamble or time commitment than a 100K manuscript), whether the material interests the narrator or not, whether the project is likely to lead to more (paying) work, etc.

Many top narrators will only take on Royalty Share deals if there’s a good likelihood that the proceeds from the sale of audiobooks will provide more income for the narrator than the up-front per finished hour deal would, so a book needs to be selling very well or have a significant advertising campaign in place in order for experienced narrators to take on Royalty Share deals.  Newer narrators, though, can be happy to do Royalty Share or Royalty Share Plus deals in order to have another book to add to their portfolio. Remember, making an audiobook is a massive undertaking for a narrator, with each hour taking around 8 hours to produce, so most don’t take on RS deals lightly!

I do know a lot of the narrators listed at AussieNarrator.com, but this is not a curated list, and I haven’t vetted them all. That’s not the purpose of AussieNarrator.com and I don’t want to decide who is and isn’t ‘good enough’ to be on the site. The purpose of AussieNarrator.com is to provide a place where narrators and authors can find each other. AussieNarrator.com is the introduction agency. It’s up to you guys (as authors and narrators) to then perform your due diligence to research who is the best fit for you, for a match made in heaven.

For authors, the purpose of auditioning narrators is to find one who produces work in a narration style which will suit your writing and a quality level that you are happy with. Some narrators will have better production values than other (clarity and cleanness in their audio files) and some narrators will fit your budget more than others. You need to audition narrators and then negotiate payment or royalty options with them until you find one that is the right fit for your situation.

Similarly, narrators need to research the books authors have on offer see whether they will be a good fit for the narrator’s current availability and pricing structure and (for any work with a royalty share component), research each book’s sales history to gauge how well an audiobook of the ebook is likely to sell.

If you’re considering a narrator who has done plenty of Voiceover or podcast work, but fewer audiobooks, make sure you have confidence they can either do the job or outsource those parts that they can’t. Voiceovers, podcasts and audiobooks are three different animals, and audiobooks are produced and edited differently than other forms of audio. (For instance, we leave the breaths in for audibooks, but they are taken out for short-form voice-overs; podcasts often have the sound ‘gated’ to produce silence between sentences, whereas this is never done in audiobooks; audiobooks need to have no extraneous sounds, whereas podcasts and voiceovers are more forgiving, etc).

If you want to learn more about audiobook production (so you can ask the correct questions of your narrator), join some narrator Facebook groups and read through the FAQs for Narrators on the website. 

Before offering a project to a narrator, perform your due diligence. This is a big investment of money for you and time (and possibly money) for your narrator, so you both need to make sure you’re on the same page, and that the other party can deliver what’s needed. Research each narrator you are considering. Look at their experience. Listen to the retail samples of books they’ve already produced that are listed at Audible. Listen critically to each audition. Make your short-list and then listen again.

Do not feel they can produce a quality product with great sound and suitable character voices? Do they have the range to do what you want (if this is a concern, make sure you include scenes demonstrating that range in your audition script). If you have any concerns, maybe don’t go ahead with production – or at least delay it until you’ve had more time to think about things. It is far too time-consuming a process for a narrator to do the work, and then have you not be happy with the outcome (or worse still, not get paid!) You need to communicate clearly, and sort things out early on with your narrator so that you are both on the same page.

Do not be afraid to reject a narrator who isn’t right for the job. Seasoned narrators know that auditioning is a numbers game, and they can’t be right for each job. A reasonable audition strike rate is landing about one job in 10 auditions, so we’re used to not getting a job.

If you’re tossing up between two auditions, you can contact the narrators to find out whether there are any other aspects that might tip the balance towards one or the other. This could include negotiating a different rate or a different time-frame. Or you could explain that you are considering another narrator and would they mind recording a second audition with a different audition script to help you choose. They can only say no, after all.  

One of the reasons you engage a particular narrator is because they are a professional who knows what they are doing. Part of their job is making artistic decisions for the audiobook on behalf of you. They are the performer, and you are the writer. The audiobook is a joint project and you must trust each other to perform your own jobs (and not necessarily the other person’s job). Don’t be tempted to micro-manage. If you don’t trust a particular narrator to do a good job, don’t employ them.

(If you really want to direct the lines your narrator speaks, you can hire a studio and audio engineer, and bring in your narrator so that you then become the director (instead of the narrator self-directing), but this is then a very different (and more expensive) process than a normal audiobook. )

As the author, you certainly should give your narrator/s as much information as you feel will be helpful to them (the ages, backgrounds, personalities, accents, attitudes and any vocal characteristics of characters, and possibly information on the tone, feel, pace or emotions you want to come out in the audio). But then you should step aside and let the narrator get on with their job. You have to trust their creativity, and if your audiobook doesn’t turn out with exactly the same voices as those you’ve pictured in your head, that’s okay. It’s a piece of art in its own sake, different from, but related to your ebook and print work.

Providing direction early on (prior to approval of the ‘first 15’ check-point), is acceptable, but it is too late at the end, after a book has been recorded, to go back and make large artistic changes. You are not the director. The narrator is the director, and the narrator uses the information you have provided as a guide to produce their work, but ultimately it is their vision of your characters, (in conjunction with the information you’ve given them to work from, of course) that ends up in the audio.

It is not acceptable for you to go back at the end of recording and give your narrator a list of artistic changes (eg, can you make Kate’s voice deeper; can you put a larger pause between this sentence and that one, I thought Peter sounded too posh, etc).  It’s not practical for large-scale changes to be made. A word here or there, if it’s wrong is fine. But it is incredibly time-consuming for an editor to slot in numerous changes after recording is done. So much so, that if there are five or more places on a page of text that need replacing, it becomes less time-consuming for the narrator to redo the entire page (including re-proofing and re-mastering) rather than trying to slot in multiple re-recorded snippets of dialogue.

Although the ebook is your baby, you may need to accept that the audiobook is only half your baby; it becomes someone else’s baby once you commission a narrator. Trust in your narrator’s work – you’ve employed them for their knowledge and expertise. They probably know what they’re talking about.

Tread very gently when giving narrators constructive criticism about their performance. Imagine how you’d feel if your narrator started telling you how to rewrite your book to make it better. How dare they propose to tell you – the writer – how to write! That’s how a narrator can feel if you start telling them how to narrate, or you want to make seemingly inconsequential or minor artistic changes after the book has been narrated.

By all means, if there’s something you feel very strongly about that is a quick fix (only necessitating a couple of re-recorded lines), then ask nicely if your narrator would mind changing those parts. But understand that the only changes a narrator is obliged to make after the end of recording, are any text errors, misread words or mis-pronounced words (according to accepted local pronunciation).

So you need to make sure you’ve given your narrator the information they need to produce a quality product you’re proud of. If a character’s name could be pronounced more than one way, let your narrator know what pronunciation you want. Providing them with a document giving some background or other info about each character (particularly anything that impacts on the voice of the character, such as where they are from, what age, what socio-economic background, what sort of personality they have, accents, vocal qualities, etc) can be invaluable in ensuring they deliver a performance in keeping with your expectations.

And never forget that narrators thrive on praise! Like most people with artistic temperaments, they’re often a complex combination of creativity, insecurity and bravado, and a bit of praise can go a long way to buoying their spirits and getting an excellent performance from them.

Since it so difficult for narrators to go back and make multiple changes after the narration is done, there is often a 15-minute check-point included towards the start of recording, so that the author can check they are happy with how everything is sounding.  This is the time that the author should give constructive feedback and directorial ‘notes’. If notes are given, the first 15 is re-recorded and again submitted to the author for approval. If approval isn’t given and you’re not happy with how things are sounding, this is the point at which the contract should be dissolved, and you and the narrator should part ways.

The 15-minute checkpoint is the last point at which the author is meant to give direction or artistic notes. After that, the only changes that the narrator is obliged to make is the fixing of text errors (such as misreads by the narrator).

So as an author, you need to make sure you like what you hear in the 15-minute checkpoint. That is your sample of what the entire book will be like, so make sure you’re happy. Your approval of the ‘first 15’ is your go-ahead for the narrator to continue on to finish the entire book. Because of this, you may wish to hear something specific in the ‘first 15’. If you don’t specify, then most narrators will send over the first 15 minutes or the first chapter or so as a checkpoint. If, instead, you would like them to read specific sections for the ‘first 15’, then let them know early on, and send them a 15-minute script which includes the excerpts you want to hear (for instance, particular character voices you might be concerned about, or scenes that could be problematic, like love scenes or action scenes.) Communicate with your narrator early, so that they know you definitely want to be sent a 15-minute checkpoint file, and let them know whether the narrator should send the first 15 minutes of the book or whether you’ll send over a script containing specific excerpts that you’d like to hear.

If the entity who is producing your audiobook files is either your aggregator or a production house, it’s likely that they’ll send an online contract for the author and narrator to sign, so that all pertinent details are in a written agreement. If you’re working direct with a narrator but uploading through a self-managing production dashboard through your aggregator (ACX, Findaway Voices, Spoken Realms, Audiobooks Unleashed), these entities will also organise the necessary online contracts for both parties to sign.

If, however, you’re working direct with a narrator but outside one of the aggregator dashboards (so if your plans are to pay your narrator PFH for their finished files, and then upload your purchased retail-ready audiofiles to either FV or AR as a finished audiobook), then you won’t have a written contract unless one of you provide it, and you may want to put the details of your agreement in writing. Some people modify a contract from another audiobook as a basis for making a written contract; some just trust each other to do the right thing (I’ve a regular client I’ve worked with for over a year, and I just produce her books and she pays me – simple as that and we both know the other party will do the right thing, without bothering with any written agreements, since we’ve established a trustful working relationship). Whatever you do in this situation is up to you, but just ensure all parties are clear on who is responsible for what and the timelines before you start. And for PFH work by a narrator who hasn’t worked for you before, it’s common to provide a deposit up front (anywhere from 25% to 50%). Again, it’s up to both parties to negotiate, but you may be asked to supply a deposit and/or sign a written contract.

Unless you’re working through a production house that provides this service, usually you will be responsible for providing a cover for your audiobook. Check the specifications for covers at ACX (so your cover will be acceptable for Amazon, Audible and iTunes). Most covers are design modifications from the book’s Amazon/KDP ebook versions. Many times the original ebook designer will modify your original artwork to make it into a square of the right resolution for your audiobook for a small fee (since they already have the artwork and elements, and just need to tweak them).

As with ebooks, never underestimate the power of a good cover, which is easily readable in a small thumbnail size, and one which uses the accepted current ‘genre shorthand’ images to convey a book’s contents to a book-savvy audience. There is currently no requirement to include the narrator’s name on your audiobook cover, though most narrator’s appreciate it, and if the narrator is well-known, (or becomes well-known) it may help the sales of your audiobook to have the narrator name included. Some audiobooks have ‘Narrated by’ and some use ‘Read by’ or ‘Performed by’.

Consider what you can do to help market your audiobook and get some buzz happening about it during the narration process. Your narrator may be happy to record live on Discord (see below) and you can publicise their times of broadcast on your Facebook page and have fans turning up to hear the book read live. Or if you’d like a video snippet to use on your Facebook page, maybe ask your narrator if they could send you 30 seconds of their narration which you could use with Headliner (or a similar program) to make a great post as a pre-release teaser or a behind the scenes look at audiobook production.

Fans love hearing narrators on Discord, as they can interact via messaging with the narrator (as can you also, if you drop in to hear some of the live recording sessions – just don’t start micro-managing your narrator. Like most performers, underneath our outer bravado is often a timid and fragile ego, so tread carefully! Remember you’re hearing the raw files on Discord with all the bloopers and re-reads included. I both love it and hate it when authors listen in to my reading their work on Discord. It’s amazing having the author right there with you, able to answer any questions, etc, but it’s also rather nerve-wracking! Fans, though, are great!

Publicise your upcoming audiobook in your newsletter and on your website.

There are companies and facebook groups who will help launch your audiobook. There are often promo codes that you can give away to gain reviews (post a giveaway on Facebook or you can use promo code giveaway websites like AudioFreebies (run by me!), Audiobooks Unleashed (run by Sarah Sampino, the same narrator who runs the Audiobooks Unleashed aggregator company) or Audiobook Boom and FreeAudiobooksCodes.com (both run by narrator Jeffrey Kafer).

If you’re wanting to push sales, sometimes the best thing you can do is advertise your ebook via Amazon or Facebook ads. If your ebook is selling well, your audiobook will tend to sell well also, and I’ve seen narrators who advertise their ebooks gain audiobook sales also.

Chirp special deals will usually net a lot of sales (anyone who has data on how many, let me know and I’ll add it in here!). Chirp is owned by Findaway Voices (but you don’t have to be in Findaway to apply for a Chirp ad). Think of Chirp as ‘Bookbub for audiobooks’. It’s a daily list of heavily discounted (typically 80 to 90% off) audiobooks temporarily on special, which is emailed to thousands of subscribers and displayed on the Chirp website.

Five to ten years ago, I remember reading on various author forums that the usual estimate of audiobooks sold was one audiobook sale for every 10 ebook sales. I’ve no idea whether that estimate still holds. But when estimating how much you’ll gain in revenue for each audiobook sale, find a book similar to yours on Audible (similar length and genre – don’t forget you can estimate the length of your audiobook by dividing your manuscript by 9300 words to get the approx number of hours in your finished audiobook). Then use the table of royalties above to see how much your audiobook will make you for each sale.

Be aware that many audiobooks don’t sell at Audible for full price. For instance, if an audiobook is ‘bought’ with an Audible subscriber’s monthly credit, the royalty you’ll receive will be as though the audiobook sold for around $15, regardless of the nominal list price of the audiobook. Similarly, if the audiobook is purchased by an Audible subscriber, they receive a member discount of 30%, so the book’s sale price will be 70% of its list price. And savvy audiobook listeners know they can buy many audiobooks at a heavy discount if they also buy (or already own) the corresponding ebook. So listeners can buy audiobooks at Amazon in conjunction with the ebook, giving the audiobook a massive discount. For example, the audiobook for this book at Amazon is $17.99, but on the book’s Kindle page, you can buy the ebook and audiobook together for $11.50 – that’s over a third off full price and the listener gets both ebook and audiobook. (At least you authors get the benefit of an ebook sale at the same time; whereas a narrator in a royalty share deal for that audiobook loses out heavily on that transaction!). So take these discounted prices into consideration when estimating your return from audiobooks or calculations of how many sales it will take to pay back a PFH outlay.

Facebook Groups – There are many authors who join the Facebook groups for narrators to learn about audiobook production and make contacts in the community.

Karen Commins (narrator) has a wonderful resource for authors here

Just like author Facebook groups, there are narrator groups where authors and narrators share ideas and information. Probably the best known narrator Facebook group is https://www.facebook.com/groups/ACXNarratorsProducers/, frequented by many of the top narrators internationally. Reading past posts, using the search function and looking at the FAQs pages for this group (which are listed in the text if you click on the top banner picture), provides a wealth of information for narrators and authors alike. If you wish to join, you’ll need to answer a few questions. Be honest – if you’re an Australian author exploring audiobook options and looking to learn about audiobook production, say that, and hopefully you’ll be approved to join.

  • Audiobook Edge for narrators and authors – https://www.facebook.com/groups/aeauthorsandnarrators

A single narrator is the most common form of audiobook, and generally the most cost-effective to produce. Many romances use two narrators, in either dual or duet narration style.

Dual Narration

Dual narration is where each narrator reads the sections or chapters of the book which are written from their gender’s point of view (so the male reads the male hero’s chapters, and the female reads the heroine’s chapters). This is fairly easy to accomplish and shouldn’t add anything extra (or very little) to PFH titles, since if you’re paying per finished hour, then you can split the work by word count, and pay each narrator accordingly. It does require you to find two narrators and for them to communicate so that the voices of the common characters sound roughly similar no matter which narrator is narrating. And it helps if the editor can master the audio so both recording environments sound similar.

If you are doing royalty share, you can also easily do dual narration, provided your aggregator allows for payment splits of to more than two people and in ratios other than 50/50. Audiobooks Unleashed and Spoken Realms both can do this. I’m not sure about FV, but it might be worth inquiring (though their royalty share service works out comparatively costly, compared to some of the other options).

Duet Narration

Duet narration is also often used in romances. This is where the male speaks all the lines of dialogue that any male in the book speaks, plus all the lines of the narrator which are written from the male point of view, and the female speaks all the lines of dialogue spoken by any female characters anywhere in the book, as well as any narrator lines written from the female’s point of view. Producing this sort of audiobook is much more time-consuming, and therefore much more expensive. Afterall, a conversation between the hero and heroine will mean every line has to be edited together back and forth between lines of dialogue which were recorded by different speakers in a different studio, most probably on different days, without hearing the other speaker. These must be put together like a jigsaw with the background room sound perfectly matched, as though they are both speaking in the same room.

Multi-Cast

Very rarely (though it’s becoming more common – particularly for trad-publisher audiobooks), more ambitious projects engage a cast of multiple narrators, so that each character and the narrator are all played by different narrators, much like a radio play. These productions also often incorporate sound effects or music to add extra atmosphere. Multi-cast projects are usually produced by experienced production houses (rather than a single narrator), and are generally quite costly to produce. If you are interested in seeing how this works, check out soundbooththeater.com.

If your manuscript includes erotic or controversial content, your narrator may wish to narrate under a pseudonym. Many narrators have established pseudos that have their own social media pages and websites, so this can be a good fit and even benefit your work if the pseudo is as popular as the real narrator’s name. Similarly, if your work is a ‘clean read’ you may wish your narrator to narrate under an alternative name, to distance the work from the narrator’s steamy titles. This is very easy to accomplish and doesn’t usually present any problems. Just let your narrator know beforehand.

For the author, very little! The most you’ll need to do is:

  • provide a manuscript for the narrator to read from (pdf, docx, doc, google doc. I prefer something text-based rather than a PDF, so that I can put it into Word and mark it up in my preferred format so that it’s easiest for me to read (change spacing, font size, colours for each characters, add notes or phonetic spelling, underlining for emphasis, etc).
  • provide an audition script and any instructions for the audition.
  • Listen to the auditions and choose a narrator, including negotiating fees and conditions with them.
  • Ideally, provide a character sheet so the narrator has pertinent info about each character. (background, age, attitude, accents, any other vocal qualities, whether they’ll become a recurring character in later books, etc)
  • Approve the 15-minute check-point (or provide feedback if it needs adjustment).
  • Approve the final audio files.
  • Arrange for cover art (unless someone else is taking care of this).

For whoever is producing the audiobook, there’s quite a bit of work to do! In fact, the reason that PFH rates are so high is that audiobook production is very labour-intensive. Each hour of finished audio takes between 6 and 9 hours to produce. 

An audiobook is like a play where one person plays all the parts, so the narrator has to understand the story and the characters before they begin. In addition, the audio has to be crisp and clean (unlike a podcast or radio broadcast, where there’s some allowance made for background noises like chair squeaks or tummy rumbles, and there’s often music under some of the talking. With an audiobook, the expectation is for crisp, clear speech recorded in an environment that is free of any background noise or echo. That sort of quality takes time and care to achieve. In fact, it’s not the narration that takes the most time – it’s the editing to make the audio accurate and free of extraneous noises.

Here’s the life-cycle of the production stage of an audiobook, together with how long each stage takes.

  1. 1 hour minimum – Reading and research.
    Read the entire book while taking notes on characters, accents, story arcs, unfamiliar words and place names, names with ambiguous pronunciations etc. Even non-fiction books benefit from a pre-read to not only note words for pronunciation research, but also so the narrator has the confidence of knowing the subject before they start. Research pronunciations, practice accents or foreign lines.
  2. 0.5 to 1 hour – Mark up the script (to reduce the number of retakes in the soundbooth).
    Narrators have their òwn favourite methods. Some mark in breaths. Some add underlining for emphasis or marks for pauses. I mark dialogue in different colours for each different character; add phonetic spelling for words I’m likely to mispronounce; underline vocal descriptors (whispered, yelled, gruffly, gasped, breathily, etc).
  3. 2 hours – Record the script using “Punch and Roll” technique.
    Punch and Roll (PnR) is a method of ‘editing as you go’, where each time a mistake is noticed or the narrator needs to re-do a line to make it more meaningful, they go back to the end of the last good sentence, and re-record from there on, to record over the mistake and keep going. Experienced narrators generally spend 2 hours in the sound booth to get one hour of PnR audio.
  4. 1.25 to 1.5 hours – Proof the recording.
    Listening to the recorded audio while reading along with the script to ensure no mistakes were made. Good proofers will also listen out for extraneous noises. (Accepted best practice is for narrators to not proof their own work, and many will outsource proofing, even if they perform every other task themselves.) Proofers note mistakes and the location in the script and the audio where they occurred.
  5. 15 minutes – Re-record misreads and mistakes identified during Proofing 
    This generally takes about 15 minutes per finished hour of audio, not counting the time to re-edit.
  6. 2 to 3 hours – Edit the audio.
    Depending on the workflow, editing can be done in one procedure after proofing and pickups, or have part of it done before proofing and part done after. Editing consists of cleaning the audio to get rid of any extraneous sounds (mouth clicks, tummy noises, chair squeaks, traffic, dogs barking, etc), adding top and tail room tone, tweaking the lengths of pauses, reducing the volume of loud breaths, fixing inconsistencies within the audio, and seamlessly editing in the re-recorded ‘pickups’ identified during Proofing.
  7. 0.25 hours or a bit less – Mastering.
    The frequencies and volumes within different parts of each audio file are manipulated to improve the clarity, crispness and ‘sweetness’ of the sound. Additional processing evens out the volume somewhat (making the loudest parts a little quieter and the softest parts a little louder, then brings up the overall volume, so that the audio is a more consistent volume to allow even the softest parts to be heard in a noisy environment without adjusting the volume. Mastering is what is done to make audio files meet strict audiobook file format guidelines, so that the volume across audiobooks is roughly equal. In practice, though mastering is fiddly and takes software knowledge and an expert ear, once it is set for one file in the audiobook, it becomes streamlined for every file – hence the low amount of time it takes to perform over a whole audiobook.
  8. 0.25 hours or a bit less – Export and Upload
    Export and upload each file to Wav, Flac or mp3 format as required. Archive material in wav or flac for the client. Upload the files to the client or to the aggregator, as required.

Note that for non-trad-published audiobooks, the author is usually provided with a 15-minute checkpoint towards the start of production. Either the first 15 minutes (if nothing else has been specified) or a set 15-minute section (including scenes the author has specified, usually so they can hear different character voices or the emotional level of key scenes) is narrated, edited, proofed and mastered and sent to the author for their approval. This is the last point in the process where the author can provide advice or artistic direction. After this approval is obtained, the project is then completed ‘full steam ahead’.

Once the project has been narrated, proofed, corrected, edited and mastered, final files are sent to the author for approval (either by author or by Quality Control at the production house). Once approved, the final audio files are uploaded to the aggregator, who will then perform their own checks and repackaging of the audio before sending it to retail outlets.

You’re embarking on a relatively new industry in Australia and New Zealand which has great growth potential, and you’re incredibly lucky that this is at a time when you have access to more information than has ever been available before. Podcasts, blogs, online tutorials, youtube channels, books, workshops, one-on-one coaching – it’s all there for you to digest to find out how others go about producing audiobooks – either as an author or a narrator.

But when you’re looking online, don’t forget that a lot of what you read or watch may not be completely helpful. Some of it could be very out of date or misleading – made by a well-meaning person who didn’t know much more than you do. 

The secret is to read or watch way more of it than you think you need to, and you’ll start to sort out the fact from the fiction. Find information from multiple sources. The more voices you hear from, the more you’ll get a feel for who is giving great advice and who isn’t.

And make sure you look at the date at which the information is provided. It’s amazing how fast things change in the literary world. What might have been de-rigeur for audiobook production five years ago, may not be so at present.

If you want to know more about audiobook production, you can listen (and often watch) narrators working live on Discord.com, even interacting with them via text chat. There are two narrator portals in particular which might be useful:

You may even be able to listen to your narrator narrating your book if you arrange this with them. This can be really interesting, and really helpful. (It’s wonderful to have the author there to ask questions on pronunciation, etc). Just remember though, it can be nerve-wracking having an author listen to you narrate their work, so resist the temptation to add too much direction. But it’s a great way to create buzz about an upcoming release, so you might want to send your fans to Discord to publicise an upcoming release.

These wonderful videos are by narrator, Catherine Bilson. Originally from the UK, Catherine is an Aussie-resident narrator and author, so she knows the business from both sides. As these videos were recorded in 2020, there are a few minor things which have changed, but generally these videos are a great source of information for Australian/NZ authors wanting to know where to start to get their books into audio. There are a few things which have changed since these videos were recorded, so check the info above for anything you’re not sure about.

Detailed additional notes coming soon!