How much does it cost to record an audiobook?
How much does it cost to turn your book into an audiobook?
The real answer is that it depends on whether you record your audiobook yourself or hire a narrator or audiobook producer to complete the production for you.
In short, you could spend as little as $0 upfront to work with a narrator on ACX, invest $50 to $500+ in audio equipment if you choose to record your audiobook yourself, or spend between $50 to $400+ per finished hour to have your audiobook narrated by a professional.
In this post, I’m going to walk you through the pros and cons of the different options mentioned above for recording your audiobook so that you’ll have a good idea of how much it will cost to make an audiobook.
4 Options for Producing Your Audiobook
When it comes to creating audiobooks, there are four main options that you can choose from:
Produce the audiobook yourself,
Enter into a revenue share agreement with an audiobook narrator,
Pay a flat “per hour” rate to have your book produced by a professional narrator (this is often refered to as a PFH contract) or
Work out a “hybrid” agreement that includes both a royalty share and a flat rate component (usually the flat rate fee is significantly lower than with a straight PFH contract.)
Deciding which option is best for you is a big decision, so let’s take a closer look at the costs involved with each option in greater detail.
Option #1: Record your own audiobook
If you are a self published author or a published author who has retained the audio rights to your book, you have the option of recording your own audiobook and selling it through Audible via ACX or through dozens of other audiobook retailers via Authors Republic.
If a publisher holds the audio rights to your book, you will need to discuss your options with them (and possibly negotiate a new contract) before proceeding.
Whether it is a good idea to record your own audiobook or not is a whole other question and depends on a number of factors such as:
Performance Ability - Your ability to perform the narrative reading of your book in a way that connects with and meets the expectations your listeners.
Technical Skill - Most audiobook publishing platforms (including ACX) have technical requirements that your audiobook must meet before it can be sold on Audible, Amazon, iTunes, etc. I walk through how to satisfy these requirements in greater detail in my book - Audiobook Recording: A Beginner’s Guide to Producing Audiobooks using Audacity.
Genre - If you’re a non-fiction author with a following (YouTube, Podcast, etc.) chances are, your audience will respond favorably to you narrating your own audiobook (assuming you have at least average performance ability). In fact, in most cases, the audiences of public figures and influencers expect that the book will be narrated by the author and may be disappointed if it is not.
However, if you are a fiction author, you are going to need some acting skills (natural or learned) and a good working knowledge of what’s expected from performers of your particular genre. Listen to audiobooks in your genre that have good ratings and reviews and compare their performance skills to your own before proceeding.
Creative Control - If you want to have creative control over every aspect of the production, you may want to consider narrating/producing your own audiobook or working closely with a voice talent in a studio where you can act as the director. When working with freelance narrators online, you typically have to give up a lot of creative or directional control once you have chosen a narrator and trust their interpretation of the manuscript.
Budget - It can be less expensive to record your own audiobook than to hire a professional narrator for a flat rate fee. At a minimum you will need to purchase basic equipment, but it can be used again on your own projects or you may even choose to do some freelance narrating of your own once you learn the process.
If after carefully considering the pros and cons, you decide to move forward with recording your own audiobook, here’s a list of equipment that you’ll need:
Equipment List
Microphone: $50-$500+ (I highly recommend the Rode Nt1-A Kit or Rode Nt-1 Updated Kit)
Pop Filter: $14 (360 Flex Wind Screen)
Interface: $100+ (Scarlett Solo or Scarlett 2i2 for dual narration. Can also be used for podcasting/instruments.)
Studio Monitor Headphones: $80+ (Sony MDR 7506 or Sennheiser HD 280 PRO)
Microphone Stand: $15 - $40 (desktop or boom/clamp mount)
Recording Software: Free (Audacity) — There are other paid programs that can be used such as Pro Tools, Adobe Audition, Reaper, etc. but Audacity has everything you need for audiobook recording.
Total Cost
$155 to $750+ depending on what equipment you choose to use, plus the cost of your time.
*Equipment can be repurposed for other projects or resold on Ebay or Amazon.
Option #2: Hire an ACX narrator for no upfront cost (royalty share)
If you don’t want to narrate your own book, you can have your audiobook narrated for no upfront cost by entering into a royalty share agreement with a narrator.
At the present time, ACX is the only audiobook publisher that I know of that supports this royalty share option, although I suppose you could draft your own contract (hopefully with the help of an attorney) if you wanted to pursue this type of contract outside of ACX.
If you do a royalty share through ACX, you will spilt your royalty (the amount that you are entitled to after ACX/Audible takes it’s share) with your narrator 50/50. ACX handles all of the accounting and makes the payments to you and your narrator each month so you don’t have to keep track of the accounting.
Let’s talk about the pros and cons of doing this.
Pros
The only real upside to this type of contract for the author is that they don’t have to pay a fee upfront to have their book turned into an audiobook and sold on Audible, Amazon, and iTunes.
This might be a good option if you are working with an extremely tight budget, but there are quite a few downsides to consider.
Cons
In most cases, I think that the cons far outweigh the pros when it comes to doing a royalty share deal.
You must enter into an exclusive distribution contract with ACX/Audible if you’re going to do a royalty share. This means that your audiobook will only be available through Audible, Amazon, and iTunes for the next seven years. You may not sell or offer your audiobook through any other distribution channel. Luckily, these are currently the most popular places for listeners to purchase audiobooks, but that could change.
You lose out on 50% of your earnings. In a lot of cases, I earn far more (as a narrator) on a royalty share contract over time than I would have made if I was paid a flat fee upfront. However, that’s not beneficial for the author longterm.
You might not attract many experienced narrators. Audiobook narrators who have invested in training and high quality equipment tend to be very wary about accepting royalty share projects because they know that most of the time they will be putting in long hours for very little in return.
Unless your book is ranking extremely high on Amazon and/or you have a massive social media following or reader list and/or solid promotion plan, you will likely only attract newer narrators with less experience and often lower quality equipment (resulting in a lower quality product overall.)
Most narrators will not help you promote your book. Very few narrators are well known or have a substantial following. There are some exceptions, but it’s not the norm. Most narrators are concerned with “perfecting their craft” and know very little about marketing and book promotion. Essentially, their job ends once the audiobook is finished.
As you can see, the cons generally outweigh the pros when it comes to royalty share agreements, however, they are still the most popular type of contract that you’ll see on ACX.
Total Cost
50% of earnings for at least 7 years.
Option #3: Flat Rate “PFH” Agreements
A third option is to pay a narrator a flat rate fee that is based on the total “runtime” or length of the book. This is commonly referred to as a “PFH” contract.
PFH rates range from $50 per finished hour, all the way up to $400 or more depending upon the skill, experience, and reputation of the narrator.
If you are looking for an experienced narrator on ACX, you should expect to budget $150 to $250 per finished hour. For example, if your audiobook end up being 6 hours long, your total cost would be $900 to $1500. At this rate you should expect to get a good number of auditions from talented producers and will dramatically improve your chances of finding the “right voice” for your book.
PFH rates can go as low as $40 or $50 per finished hour, however, most “serious” narrators will not accept projects at this rate. You may get some auditions from newer narrators with far less experience, but your choice of talent will likely be limited at this level.
***Tip: You can estimate the audio length of your book by dividing the total word count by 9,300. (9,300 is the average number of words per hour in an audiobook.)
If you are considering a PFH contract with a narrator, your goal as an author should be to offer a rate that will attract talented voice artists who have the ability to deliver a high quality product, but you also want to consider your sales and promotion strategy to ensure that you will break even and your book will become profitable after a certain amount of time.
For example, if you pay a narrator $2000 to produce your audiobook, but only earn $1000 in royalties over the next couple of years, that may not the best business move on your part.
However, if you have a smart, effective promotion strategy and are able to earn several thousand per month on the sale of your audiobook, then paying your narrator a flat fee rather than splitting profits is clearly the better strategy from an economic perspective.
Total Cost
$50-$400+ times the total run time (hours) of your book.
Option #4: Hybrid Contracts
There is a fourth option that is also exclusive to ACX and that the “hybrid” or “royalty share plus” contract.
This type of contract combines a standard royalty share agreement (50/50 split) with a reduced PFH rate.
Why would an author wish to consider this type of agreement with a narrator?
The idea is that you can attract “better quality” narrators (however you want to define that) without having to pay a very large fee upfront.
I mentioned before that many narrators who have competitive skills and have invested in high end equipment are quite apprehensive about taking books on royalty share because they have to carry all of the risk. If the author doesn’t do his or her part to promote the book effectively, then they may run the risk of spending many hours working for essentially nothing.
This may be a risk that newer narrators are willing to take when they are working on building up their portfolios, but most experienced narrators have been burned by royalty share books in past and won’t consider the offer.
A hybrid contract helps to offset that risk in the mind of the narrator.
PFH rates within hybrid contracts tend to be much lower than straight PFH rates. I’ve seen them range from $25 to $100 per finished hour in addition to the royalty share split.
This is a relatively new type of contract on ACX and the PFH terms are negotiable. You do not have to state the hybrid PFH rate upfront when you post your book for auditions, so you’ll need to communicate with individual audiobook narrators who submit auditions to find out what their hybrid requirements are.
Pros
You will attract more experienced narrators without having to pay a large fee upfront.
Cons
You still have to enter into an exclusive distribution agreement with ACX (meaning your audiobook will only be sold on Audible, Amazon, and iTunes for 7 years, and you still have to give up 50% of your royalties to the narrator.
** At this time, ACX only offers a 50% royalty share split. You do not have the ability to alter or negotiate the split.
Total Cost
50% of audiobook royalties + reduced PHF rate (negotiable).