Pick the voice, hear it on your text
Choose a narrator from our catalog, get a sample recorded from your own pages, and approve it before we produce the rest.
ACX puts you in a marketplace: post a listing, wait for narrators to audition, then pay per finished hour or split your royalties for the life of the book. Audiobookery is a production service instead - you pick a voice from our catalog, approve a sample recorded from your own pages, and we deliver a retail-ready audiobook you own outright.
ACX, the Audiobook Creation Exchange, is Amazon and Audible's platform for matching authors with freelance narrators. You post your manuscript, narrators audition, and you pay per finished hour of audio or offer a royalty share in place of an upfront fee. Some ACX deals include exclusivity to Audible for a set term. None of that is wrong - it works for many authors - but it means finding a narrator, negotiating terms, and waiting on someone else's calendar before a single chapter is recorded.
Choose a narrator from our catalog, get a sample recorded from your own pages, and approve it before we produce the rest.
From the Creator plan, your narrator and your characters each keep a stable voice from the first chapter to the last.
Music matched to your genre, levels mastered chapter by chapter to retail spec - the sound of a studio release.
You keep 100% of your rights and royalties on every store. Nothing here locks your book to one retailer.
A finished audiobook file plus a store-ready package. Not happy with one chapter? We redo that chapter, not the book.
Three cover proposals, three title ideas and a store description written to be found, so you are not producing audio for a page nobody clicks.
Want to hear it first? Listen to Studio and Premium samples, then check pricing.
| What matters | ACX marketplace | Freelance narrator | Audiobookery |
|---|---|---|---|
| How you pay | Per finished hour or royalty share | Flat fee, negotiated | Flat monthly plan or per book |
| Exclusivity risk | Optional, some deals lock to Audible | Depends on contract | Never |
| You approve before full production | Audition only | Sometimes | Always, on your own pages |
| Multi-voice casting | Extra narrators to hire | Extra narrators to hire | Included from Creator |
| Typical wait | Weeks of auditions | Weeks to months | About an hour once approved |
| Your rights | Yours (non-exclusive deals) | Yours | Always yours |
Plans start at $29 a month for 500 pages of finished audiobook, on a 12-month commitment with two months free when billed yearly. Publishing once? Order a single audiobook from $129, no commitment. A page is 275 words - we count pages, never books, so a short story and a long novel both fit your plan.
ACX, the Audiobook Creation Exchange, is Amazon and Audible's marketplace that connects authors with narrators. Authors can pay per finished hour, split royalties with a narrator, or narrate the book themselves, and some deals come with exclusivity to Audible.
An alternative production path. We do not list narrators or run a marketplace. We produce your audiobook end to end - you pick a voice, approve a sample of your own pages, and we deliver retail-ready files for the stores that accept AI narration.
Always. You own the master files, set your own retail price, and never sign away exclusivity or a revenue share. ACX's non-exclusive royalty option protects your rights too, but its exclusive deals and per-hour production still tie up your book for months.
Once you approve your voice sample, a standard-length novel is produced in about an hour of processing, not the weeks a narrator search and recording schedule takes.
Not with AI narration. ACX requires a human narrator; the only synthetic voices it takes are Amazon's own (Virtual Voice, through KDP). Your files go to the stores that accept AI narration, with a deposit guide for each.
No marketplace, no exclusivity, no revenue share. See how hiring a narrator or a full production service compares.