How It Works

Agents

Literary agents, your job just got a lot easier.

ACX will help you produce and sell your clients’ audiobooks.

You and your authors can decide how the audiobooks are produced, how to pay for them, how they sound, and how they sell. You are in the director’s chair.

Your completed audiobooks will be sold at three of the largest audiobook retailers in the world: Audible.com, Amazon.com, and iTunes. And you’ll earn royalties of up to 40%.

Or, find an audio publisher (e.g. Random House’s audio division, Brilliance Audio) to buy the audio rights when you list titles on ACX.

Need help getting started? Have account set-up questions?

Now’s the time to resurface those titles. ACX facilitates each audiobook production—for free or at market-optimized rates—using top-notch narrators.

Here’s how it works:

Step 1. Confirm

Confirm you have world audio rights for the books by double-checking those book contracts.

Step 2. Search

Search for your books on ACX. If they’ve been published by major publishers and haven’t been produced as audiobooks, then they’re great candidates for ACX.

Step 3. Create Profiles

Create a separate Title Profile for each book. Here you’ll describe the book the type of narrator best suited for it. If any of your authors want to narrate themselves, you can keep those Title Profiles pretty simple, since they won’t be shopped around to Narrators. The Title Profiles are basically ads for your books to get Narrators and potential Studio Professionals excited about producing your books as audiobooks.

Note: if you have over 50 titles to add to ACX and don’t want to look up one at a time, email rights@acx.com and our team of professionals will create Title Profiles for you.

Step 4. Find Narrators

Post your books so Narrators, Studio Professionals, or Audiobook Publishers can contact you. Or do your own casting call—listen to sample narrations already posted by actors and then invite a handful to audition for each book.

Step 5. Review Auditions

Review your incoming auditions from Narrators or Studio Professionals.

Step 6. Make a Deal

Make an Offer to a Narrator or other Studio Professional. You can choose to pay them a fee based on their posted per-finished-hour rate or negotiate something a little lower with them through an ACX Message. Or, in lieu of an upfront payment, share your royalties 50-50. Alternately, your book may garner interest from an Audiobook Publisher who wants to buy the rights from you (instead of working through ACX). And that’s fine with us.

Step 7. Check-in

The audiobook production process begins. This generally will last about 3–8 weeks. We’ll let you know when the fifteen minute checkpoint of each audiobook is ready for review. Take this opportunity to listen to the narrator’s performance and offer guidance. Learn more about this crucial step.

Step 8. Approve the final product

When the audiobook is completed, you can request one round of corrections or edits from the Narrator or Studio Professional. Then you’ll give final approval of the completed audiobook and pay the Studio Professional (unless the Studio Professional has agreed to forego payment for a royalty share).

Step 9. Distribute

ACX distributes your authors’ audiobooks through Amazon.com, Audible.com, and iTunes. (You can distribute to other channels as well, but not through ACX’s distribution system. And you’d miss out on ACX’s exclusive royalty, which is higher.)

Step 10. Promote

Your author should promote the availability of the audiobook to fans. Let authors know about our great marketing tools and promotion advice.

Step 11. Earn Royalties

You will receive a monthly royalty statement and payment from Audible, and you can choose to receive royalties by check or by direct deposit to the account of your choice.

For more information, please read our FAQ. If you don’t find the answers you need there, email us with your questions.

We’re here for actors! We want to help you perfect your craft and apply it to the world of audiobooks. Our goal is to get more great audiobooks to the millions of listeners around the world!