Creating an audiobook on ACX involves several steps that rights holders need to follow. This document outlines the process for rights holders—authors, publishers, literary agents, and author’s estates— to begin publishing their books on ACX.

For more information, check out our Rights Holder Toolkit.

In this article:

• Residency and tax requirements
• Confirm your book is eligible
• Create an ACX profile
• Add your tax and payment information
• Claim your title
• Create a title profile
• Set up auditions
• Make a direct offer to a producer
• Produce an audiobook
• Restarting a canceled project
• Review, approve and pay
• Promote your title 

Residency and tax requirements

ACX is currently open to individuals and companies resident in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Ireland who have a mailing address, valid local Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), and banking details for one of these countries.

Confirm your book is eligible

To set up a rights holder profile, you will need to confirm the following:

• Confirm you have audio rights for your book by checking your ebook contract. If you're self-published (say, through Kindle Direct Publishing), you've retained your audio rights.
• Ensure your book is appropriate for audio. Books heavily reliant on visuals, such as reference works, picture books, cookbooks, comics, photography books, and those on design, sports, travel guides, or technical fields, may not be appropriate as an Audiobook.
• You must have the ebook listed on Amazon.com. If you do not have a version of your book available as an ebook in Kindle on the Amazon.com book section, visit www.kdp.com, Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), to learn how to publish and sell your ebook on Amazon.com. 
• Aggregators are not eligible to use ACX. To distribute content on Audible, aggregators must contact  contentpartners@audible.com to discuss a direct agreement with our third-party team.

Create an ACX profile

To create an ACX profile, follow these steps:

1. Sign up on ACX.com by selecting Get Started using your existing Amazon email and password, or by creating a new account.
2. Confirm your name and location.
3. Select the rights holder role that best describes you or your company: Author, Publisher or Agent.
4. Mark the Eligibility boxes that apply to you. 

Ensure you have opted in to receive email notifications in order to receive updates from quality assurance(QA):

1. Sign in to your ACX account.
2. Go to Account Settings.
3. Select the Notifications tab to view your Email notifications options.
4. Make sure notifications are turned on for Production updates and Change requests.

Add your tax and payment information

Once you have created your ACX profile, you will need to add your tax and payment information by following these steps:

1. Sign in to your ACX account.
2. Select your name from the top right, then select Account Settings.
3. Go to the Tax info tab to start your Tax interview.
4. Go to the Bank info tab to add the account where you want to receive your royalty payments. 

Claim your title

You’ll be able to claim or register your title on ACX using the ASIN that was assigned to you by KDP. This is required to begin the audiobook creation process. See our Claim my title article for more details. 

Create a title profile

Creating a robust, specific, and accurate title profile is important. Create a description for your title that's detailed and compelling, as this helps producers get excited about working on your project. Include performance notes (characters, accents, overall tone, etc.), and be sure to mention if the title is part of a series.

Follow these steps to create a title profile:

1. Sign in to your ACX account.
2. Select Edit title profile next to your title.
3. Follow the on-screen instructions to add the title’s description, script, category, language, copyright information, chapters, distribution details, payment method and audition preferences.
4. Select Save and exit. 

Set up auditions

To learn more how to receive auditions, please visit our Get audiobook auditions article. 

Make a direct offer to a producer

You can also choose to make a direct offer to a particular producer. Selecting this option will start the process of making an agreement or deal with the producer. We recommend opening a dialogue with your producer before or during the offer stage to ensure you are on the same page.

If you want to make a direct offer to a particular producer, follow these steps: 

1. When creating your title profile, select Receive auditions for my project to find a narrator.
2. Select Continue.
3. Select Make offer.

Selecting this option will start the process of making an agreement or deal with the producer. We recommend opening a dialogue with your producer before or during the offer stage to ensure you are on the same page. 

Produce an audiobook

Producing your audiobook can involve hiring a producer to produce your audio. Alternatively, you can play the role of producer on your own audiobook. Audio uploads must meet our audio submission requirements and Production Standard terms.

The following are considerations when producing an audiobook:

Set a proper production schedule based on your needs and the producer's availability. Make sure to leave yourself time to review your final audio and communicate any corrections to your producer.
Limit your production schedule to five audiobooks at any given time. Audiobook production can be a time-consuming, intense effort, requiring both your attention and that of your selected producer. For that reason, we typically recommend selecting no more than five titles to produce simultaneously at any given time. Taking on more than five projects puts your productions at risk of missed due dates or cancellations, rejected audio files containing low audio quality, and disappointed producers. By focusing your efforts on five or fewer simultaneous productions, we find that rights holders can quickly and efficiently produce more consistent audiobooks of high quality.
Send the manuscript, and decide on a 15 minute checkpoint once your producer has accepted your offer. You can piece together the 15 minute checkpoint script from multiple parts of the book. Make sure to include main characters, dialogue, descriptive text, and any particularly tough scenes or tricky pronunciations. If any portion of the book seems likely to confuse your producer or deserves extra attention, include it in the 15 minute checkpoint.
Request clear and specific corrections to the 15 minute checkpoint as necessary. Once you approve, your producer will have the green light to produce the rest of the book in its entirety. Learn more on how to collaborate with your producer and how to review your audio on the ACX blog.
Secure and upload your audiobook cover. Cover art must meet our cover art requirements and should make your book attractive to potential listeners.
Line up promotions. Are you blogging about your upcoming audiobook? Are you alerting your fans or newsletter list that they will soon be able to hear your book? Keep whetting their appetite for audio to ensure they'll be eagerly anticipating the day your audiobook becomes available for sale. See our Promote your audiobook article for more information.
Request clear and specific corrections to the final audio as necessary. Don't be unreasonable, but don't be shy. This is your audiobook, and sometimes corrections are necessary. 

Restarting a canceled project

To add a project back to your dashboard on ACX:

1. Select My Projects from the navigation menu, then select Claim your title.
2. Search for your book by title, author name, or ebook ASIN.
3. Select Claim Title and choose the option that best describes your project.

Although you have previously agreed to our Book Posting Agreement and completed your title profile, you will need to complete both of these steps again. 

Review, approve, and pay

Once production is complete, you will need to approve and pay your producer for producing your audiobook (unless it is a Royalty Share). Carefully review the audiobook production before payment to ensure it meets your standards and our submission requirements. After payment has been confirmed your title will be submitted to ACX and receive a quality assurance check. If it meets all the submission requirements, your audiobook will be available for sale within 10 business days of its submission. Now you can finalize your marketing plans. You can learn more about Royalty Share, Pay-for-Production, and Royalty Share Plus payment models on our royalties page. 

Promote your title

As a self-publishing marketplace, the responsibility of promotion lies with the rights holder of the content and the producer if they are working under a Royalty Share deal. The Audible Merchandising Team independently makes the decisions regarding promotions and sometimes ACX titles are selected to be included in Audible sales.

For ideas on audiobook promotion, check out our educational video series, ACX University. In addition, consider the following when promoting your title: 

• Use promo codes to drive reviews and sales of your audiobook. Once your audiobook is made available for sale, visit the Promo Code tab of your ACX Sales Overview. Visit our Promo codes article for more information.
• Once the reviews are posted to Audible, feature your favorites in your audiobook marketing efforts.
• Update your website, blogs, and social media accounts to reflect your new audiobook. Author Barbara Freethy's audiobook section of her website is a great example of how to feature your audiobooks on a website.