How independent authors can distribute their audiobooks globally

In 2024, I wrote two e-books. To date, as a seven-time book author, I have usually submitted my book manuscripts to leading publishing houses for consideration. However, those two e-books were my side-(mini)projects. Therefore, I decided to turn them into audiobooks and distribute them globally.

Below are the three key steps that I have learnt when developing and publishing an audiobook. So far, one of my audiobooks, in English, depicts the influence of AI. The other audiobook, in Chinese, is a personal memoir that documents my mental health encounters and personal trajectory in my 20s. If you follow the three steps below, you should be able to publish your audiobooks smoothly and cost-effectively.

1. Develop Your E-book, including Opening & Closing Credits

First things first, you need to fully write and proofread your e-books. While e-books do not entail rigorous peer reviews and/or thorough reviews by literary agents, you should always be aware of the fact that quality is the key to success. No one would pay to listen to any audiobook that is dodgy and substandard.

The good news is that e-books do not follow any strict formatting requirements. However, if you plan to transform them into audiobooks, you need to write the opening and closing credits sections. You should also strategically select a chapter as your sample chapter. Normally, the introduction chapter would be a sample chapter. However, if you believe the introduction chapter is not the best-written chapter to demonstrate your talents, then choosing another chapter as a sample chapter is feasible.

2. Hire a Professional Narrator to Turn Your Books into Audio Files

While there are some non-mainstream audiobook outlets that allow authors to submit “text-to-speech” AI-powered audio files, many leading outlets, such as Amazon’s Audible, reject AI-powered narration. This means you, unfortunately, need to either use your own voice to narrate your books and save the output as audio files, or hire a professional to do so for you. If you are not a native English speaker and you are not a professional-calibre narrator, then the best option for you is to hire a professional narrator to produce the audio files (including the opening and closing credits and the sample chapters) for you.

From my experience, I paid US$450 for one book of 20,000 words narrated. Was the service worth US$450? Probably not. However, that seemingly was the market price on Fiverr. There are some less well-reviewed freelance narrators available on Fiverr who are willing to charge you lower prices to produce your audio files for the e-books. It is all up to you to decide whether you want to pay for an established, extensively reviewed narrator or a counterpart who is less well-known online.

Upon paying for the narration service, you will receive your audio files by a pre-agreed date set on Fiverr. You can then upload them to any audiobook distribution platform to publish your audiobooks.

3. Distribute Your Audiobook Globally

You can either go to individual audiobook distribution platforms one by one to upload your audio files and wait for the platforms’ support staff to review and approve your uploads. However, this is time-consuming and laborious. 

Instead, I prefer to use Findaway Voices by Spotify. Once you upload your audio files to Findaway Voices by Spotify, their support staff will review your uploads, perhaps ask for any revisions, and eventually approve your submissions. Findaway Voices by Spotify is a global distribution platform, which means your approved audiobooks will be distributed to all major global audiobook platforms efficiently to maximise the global reach of your audiobooks.

Conclusions

If your audiobooks are among the best-sellers, then congratulations. You are likely to earn handsomely from them. However, like in any content creation industry, success is only the tip of the iceberg. If you do not market your audiobooks across different social media platforms, chances are you will only earn a few cents from your audiobooks per month.

However, if you are willing and able to market your audiobooks, such as by advertising your books on Facebook or other social media platforms, you might be able to earn fairly well from them.

And please remember to follow the above three steps. In doing so, you can save a lot of time when publishing and launching your first audiobooks. 

Good luck with your publishing!

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Thanks for reading my tips on publishing audiobooks. If you would like to learn more about (mental) health, personal development, and/or (online) education from me, please feel free to subscribe to my newsletter below. Also, please feel free to browse my blog — Society & Growth — for more content at https://jasonhungofficialblog.com/.