How To Get Your Audiobooks Produced On ACX

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To get your audiobook produced on ACX, you find a narrator, sign a contract that gives you all rights, pay only after you approve the files, send the manuscript, then upload the files. Below are the five steps, what it costs and what ACX pays.

Before you start: ACX is open to residents of the US, UK, Canada and Ireland, with a postal address, a valid local tax ID and local bank details (ACX help). Your ebook must already be on sale on Amazon so you can claim it (ACX claim my title); a paperback alone is not enough. If you live elsewhere, look at Spotify for Authors or Voices by INaudio (the wide distribution side of what was Findaway Voices) instead.

What if I can’t use ACX?

If you can’t meet the country rules above, ACX is closed to you (its countries page is dated 07-Jan-26). A distributor can send your audiobook to Audible instead. Voices by INaudio’s help pages say Audible needs an ebook version available on Amazon, so a print-only book does not qualify. The title must not be claimed or distributed through ACX, and you add the Amazon ebook link, which must end with the ebook’s ASIN. The pages give no delivery time for Audible, so ask INaudio before you plan a launch date.

The same Amazon rule catches some IngramSpark authors. If your ebook went out only through IngramSpark and has not reached Amazon, there is no ebook to claim or link. Get the ebook on sale on Amazon first, through KDP or whatever route works for you.

Step 1: Find a Narrator

You will need someone to narrate your book. The best place to find narrators is Fiverr or Upwork. I prefer Upwork since the contracts are easier to control and the quality of narrators is higher.

This is someone you are going to be working with for a while. So, you will want to invest the time it takes to find a good match. You should post the job at a rate you can afford, and expect to pay more than you might think. ACX itself estimated roughly $200 per finished hour for narration and another $200 for post production, and said $300 to $400 per finished hour makes sense given the work (ACX: Money Talks, posted 11-Jun-13). That post is old, so use it as a guide, not a quote. A very low offer, like the $0.50 per finished minute I used to suggest, will get few good auditions, so test the market with your first book.

Keep costs as low as you can, but weigh them against the quality of the audio, because ACX can reject files that do not meet its standards. Audio is one more format to add once your book is out; my post on the best self-publishing platforms covers the others.

ACX says about 9,300 words equal one hour of finished audio, which is about 155 words per minute. At that speed a 15,000 word book is about 97 minutes, or just over an hour and a half. At $200 per finished hour that is roughly $320, and at $400 per finished hour about $650. Check the narrator’s rate before you agree, and work the cost out from the finished minutes.

You should also request a sample of the work they have done before in order to ensure the quality is high enough. If you are writing fiction, you should choose a narrator of the same gender as the main speaker in the book.

You can also post your book on ACX itself and let narrators audition there. That keeps the contract and payment inside ACX. Upwork and Fiverr still work if you prefer to choose people yourself, but then the contract in Step 2 matters even more.

Step 2: Ensure You Have a Contract That Shows You Own Full Rights

You don’t want to find your narrator stealing your book or worse later demanding a share of the royalties when the book starts selling.

So, the contract which can be found online easily should establish that the narrator will be paid for their work and that’s it. You will own all rights to the audiobooks.

Step 3: No Payment Until You Approve The Files

There are many rules about how the audiobooks should sound and be produced. On ACX you approve the finished audiobook yourself, then pay the narrator the full fee directly, and the narrator marks it as paid in ACX, which sends the book to ACX’s quality check. So check the files carefully before you pay.

If changes are needed, you need to make sure you won’t be required to pay additional fees. It is the narrator’s responsibility to give you audio files that are in line with ACX’s standards.

ACX reviews every audiobook before release, and files that miss its requirements (for example missing chapter headers) go back for revisions, which delays the release (ACX audio submission requirements). The requirements also say the book must be narrated by a human unless ACX has authorised otherwise, and you should not pay a producer you suspect of using text-to-speech. A narrator who knows these rules saves you a lot of back and forth; see where to find a professional narrator.

Step 4: Send Them Your Manuscript

You will want to send your narrator the PDF of your book. Make sure they don’t read out the table of contents or web page links. That only annoys the listener.

Step 5: Upload The Files To ACX

Your narrator should send you an opening credits file (title, author and narrator), the chapters, and a closing credits file. You upload all of these plus a retail sample, which is usually the first five minutes of the book (ACX audio submission requirements).

The cover must be square, at least 2400 by 2400 pixels, in JPG, PNG or TIF, in RGB colour and no bigger than 8 MB (ACX cover art requirements). The free program GIMP can do it.

What does my audio need to pass ACX?

ACX lists technical rules for every file. Each must be a constant bit rate MP3 at 192 kbps or higher and 44.1kHz, all in the same channel format, between -23dB and -18dB RMS, with peaks no higher than -3dB and a noise floor no higher than -60dB RMS. Files can be no longer than 120 minutes. Opening credits must state the title, author and narrator, closing credits must indicate that the book has ended, and the retail sample should be five minutes or less (ACX audio submission requirements, 15-Apr-26). If you hire a narrator, ask them to confirm these numbers before they deliver.

How much does ACX pay?

Never do a royalty split with a narrator. This will always be costly for you. If you own the rights, you also choose between exclusive and non-exclusive distribution, which I cover below.

New users and titles claimed after 26-May-26 are enrolled in the new model, and ACX says Audible will discontinue the legacy model by the end of the year (ACX: Audible’s new royalty model). Rights holders are paid monthly (ACX: how royalties work). Check your ACX account for the rate that applies to your title.

With Royalty Share the narrator is paid no up-front fee and Audible pays them the same share of sales as you, so you give up half your royalties (ACX royalty share terms). Royalty Share also needs exclusive distribution. That changes the whole profitability, so do yourself a favour and pay the up-front cost.

Audio seemed the hardest format to me, and it was the most difficult of my series, but once you have done it once it is much easier. Audiobooks may not be the most profitable format today, but they used to be. I once made more from audiobooks than from many of my other formats, and they competed with my paperbacks. I took royalty share for my first audiobook, when I had no money to pay a narrator up front.

I keep the same narrator for every book in a series. Then you can bundle the books into a box set without paying for the audio again: you only need a new opening and closing file.

A word on AI narration. As I said in Step 3, ACX prohibits unauthorised text-to-speech or AI voices, so files made that way can be rejected. Amazon also offers Virtual Voice, an AI narrator for KDP ebooks, which is a separate route from ACX. Check ACX’s current rules before you pay for anything made with AI.

Can I switch from exclusive to non-exclusive later?

Once, yes, with limits. ACX’s Audiobook License and Distribution Agreement says the audiobook must have been “available for sale for at least 90 days”, and you must email [email protected] saying which way you want to change. Audible “will process your request within 30 days”. The ACX Book Posting Agreement says titles made on the royalty share option must stay exclusive: “you cannot change your grant to non-exclusive.” The seven-year term starts when the audiobook first goes on sale. Also, ACX does not distribute to libraries at this time, and its distribution page tells you to choose non-exclusive if you want them.

If you go non-exclusive, ACX handles Audible, Amazon and Apple Books only. For other stores you add a distributor of your own, and ACX says those arrangements must be made independent of ACX. My advice: pick each store through one route only, so the same audiobook isn’t sent to Audible twice.

An audiobook publisher wants my audio rights. What do I check?

Start with what you own. ACX’s Starting your audiobook project page says that if you’re self-published, for example through Kindle Direct Publishing, you’ve retained your audio rights, and that you confirm this from your contract.

Next, check who is writing to you. The Authors Guild’s alert on email scams targeting authors (24-Feb-26) lists people impersonating publishing staff and fake domain names that mimic real companies. It says to verify anyone claiming to represent a publisher before you share your work. Its legal services include contract reviews, but only for members.

My advice: a real offer to license your audio rights doesn’t ask you to pay. Reply only through the company’s own website address, not the one in the message. Before you sign, find out which rights, which countries, for how long and how you get them back. Once you license them, you can’t make your own audiobook of that book through ACX. Have someone who knows publishing contracts read it first.

How do you work well with a narrator?

Start with how you pay, because it decides what the narrator expects. With pay for production you pay a rate per finished hour. With royalty share you pay nothing up front and split your royalties 50-50, and ACX says royalty share is only available if you give ACX exclusive distribution (ACX: Money Talks, 11-Jun-13). A narrator who takes a royalty share is betting on your sales, so a book with no audience yet is a harder sell. That is one more reason I pay the fee.

Send what the narrator needs to do the job: the manuscript, a note on how names and unusual words are said, and what you want for the voice. Say plainly if you want an accent or not. It is easier to settle that before the first chapter than after.

You do not have to say yes to every audition. I would thank the narrator, say the voice is not the right fit for this book, and leave it there. A short, kind reply costs nothing and narrators get plenty of rejections.

Pay only once you have approved the files. For a pay for production title, ACX says the rights holder pays the producer the full production fee directly once the rights holder has approved the audiobook, and the producer then marks the title as paid in ACX, which sends it to ACX’s quality check (ACX: how royalties work, 31-Jul-26). With royalty share, Audible calculates and pays the producer’s portion on your behalf, with monthly statements (ACX royalty share terms). If a narrator asks to be paid before you have approved the files, stop and check ACX’s help pages first.

Should I narrate it myself, use Virtual Voice, or go exclusive on ACX?

It depends on your budget, your voice and where you want to sell. Here are the three routes side by side.

Narrating it yourself. ACX says you must hold all rights to the book, and the ebook must already be on sale on Amazon.com (ACX). Nonfiction suits this best, because readers expect the author’s voice. Recording takes a quiet room and decent gear, so listen to a sample chapter against ACX’s requirements before you commit. My post on how to narrate your own audiobook walks through it.

Virtual Voice. It is a separate route that does not use ACX. KDP says an ebook with an Audible audiobook, including one made through ACX, is not eligible. The ebook also needs to be live, in English, Spanish, Italian or French, and not public domain. Because it is a beta and the terms can change, read KDP’s pages before you plan around it.

Exclusive or not on ACX. Exclusive means you sell only on Audible, Amazon and Apple Books and earn 50% under the new model. Non-exclusive lets you sell elsewhere, including to libraries, and earns 30%. Audible holds the distribution right for seven years either way (ACX: choose a distribution option). If you are in KDP Select, KDP says audiobooks enrolled there must be exclusive to Audible for the enrollment period.

My view: if you have no audience for audio yet, keep the cost low and choose exclusive for the higher rate. Go non-exclusive only if you have a real plan to sell the audiobook elsewhere. Exclusive ACX audiobooks can also join Kindle+, which is covered in how to get your audiobook into Kindle+.

If you already have Kindle books or paperbacks on sale, an audiobook is the next format I would add. If you want help deciding whether audio is right for your books, book a free 25-minute discovery call with me.

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