How to Publish on ACX and Audible
ACX — the Audiobook Creation Exchange — is Amazon's platform for producing and distributing audiobooks. It connects authors with professional narrators, manages the production and quality review process, and distributes finished audiobooks to Audible, Amazon, and Apple Books. For most indie authors, ACX is where their audiobook journey begins.
ACX Eligibility
ACX is available to rights holders in the US, UK, Canada, and Ireland. Authors outside these countries should use Findaway Voices or Author's Republic instead. You must hold the audio rights to the book before posting — audio rights are separate from ebook and print rights.
Step 1: Create Your ACX Account
Go to acx.com and sign in with your Amazon account — the same one you use for KDP. Agree to ACX's terms, complete your publisher profile, and set up payment (EFT to US bank, or check for other eligible countries). Complete the tax interview (W-9 for US, W-8BEN for non-US) — without it, ACX withholds 30% of US-sourced royalties. ACX pays monthly with a $10 threshold, approximately 30 days after the earning month.
Step 2: Add Your Book
From your ACX dashboard, click + Add Your Title and search for your book by title or ASIN. Your book must be live on Amazon before you can add it to ACX. Click the result to claim it as a title you want to produce as an audiobook.
Step 3: Set Up Your Audition Post
Audition Script
Provide a 100–400 word excerpt that narrators record as their audition. Choose a passage representing your book's full range — include dialogue between characters, some emotional variation, and any unusual names narrators will need to pronounce. Avoid using only the opening paragraph, where narrators perform most carefully.
Casting Notes
Write specific casting notes — voice gender, age impression, accent, tone, pacing, and comparable narrators if you have them. The more specific your direction, the more targeted the auditions you'll receive.
Step 4: Choose Your Production Model
Royalty Share vs. Flat Fee
⚠ Royalty share requires ACX exclusive distribution — incompatible with Findaway Voices or Author's Republic. If wide audio is part of your strategy, pay-for-production (flat fee) is the only compatible model.
Step 5: Review and Select Narrator Auditions
Listen to every audition in full. Evaluate: voice match to your protagonist, character differentiation in dialogue, appropriate pacing for your genre, and technical recording quality (clean audio, no background noise or mouth clicks). Before selecting, review the narrator's completed projects on Audible and read listener reviews — a full 10-hour production is a much larger commitment than a 2-minute audition.
Step 6: Contract and Production
Make an offer through ACX specifying your production model, PFH rate (if flat fee), production deadline, and exclusivity selection. After contract acceptance, the narrator uploads chapters for your review as they complete them. Review each chapter fully — note mispronunciations with exact timestamps and specific phonetic corrections. Provide a pronunciation guide before production begins for any unusual character names, place names, or invented words.
Step 7: Audio File Technical Requirements
⚠ ACX's automated QC flags files that don't meet specs. Even a single chapter with elevated noise floor can fail the entire submission. Include these specs in your narrator contract so they produce compliant files from the start.
Step 8: Exclusive vs. Non-Exclusive Distribution
On a $20 audiobook: exclusive earns $8; non-exclusive earns $5. For authors with established wide readership on Kobo and Apple Books, non-exclusive + Findaway is typically the stronger long-term play. For new audiobooks with no external audience, exclusive may be more immediately profitable.
Step 9: Submit and Go Live
Approve all chapter files, select your distribution model, and click Submit. ACX's automated QC runs first; then Audible's review takes approximately 10–14 business days. Amazon automatically Whispersync-links your audiobook to your KDP ebook, allowing readers who own the Kindle edition to upgrade to audio at a discounted price.
ACX and Audible audiobook royalties sync into ScribeCount alongside your ebook and print income. For authors managing both wide ebook royalties and audiobook royalties through ACX and Findaway, ScribeCount shows total per-title earnings across all formats in one dashboard.
Common ACX Mistakes
Choosing royalty share for a book you expect to sell strongly — the cumulative split often far exceeds flat fee cost on successful titles
Not providing a pronunciation guide before production — mispronounced names throughout an entire audiobook require expensive re-recording
Not reviewing auditions fully — evaluating only the first 30 seconds misses how narrators perform mid-passage
Selecting exclusive distribution without running the income math for your specific situation and wide strategy
Not connecting ACX to ScribeCount — losing visibility into audiobook income alongside ebook and print earnings
ACX is the gateway to Audible — the world's largest audiobook marketplace. Get the narrator selection right, review carefully chapter by chapter, make the exclusivity decision deliberately, and your audiobook becomes one of the most durable catalog assets you own.
-Randall Wood