Frequently Asked Questions

The Basics

How does ACX work?

ACX is a marketplace where professional authors, agents, publishers and any other Rights Holders can post audiobook rights to both new frontlist titles and to backlist titles that were never published as audiobooks. At ACX, those rights get matched with Producers, which include audiobook publishers, narrators, engineers, and recording studios. The result: More audiobooks will be made.

What’s the relationship between ACX, Audible.com, and Amazon.com?

A team of executives at Audible created ACX, and Audible.com, is a subsidiary of Amazon.com. All titles made into audiobooks on ACX will be sold by three of the leading retailers of digital content: Audible.com, Amazon.com, and iTunes (where Audible is the exclusive audiobook supplier).

Why was ACX created?

ACX aims to empower authors, literary agents, and publishers with a service that makes creating audiobooks both easy and lucrative. We want more audiobooks to get made. And we want to help audiobook narration to become an even more highly appreciated form of acting, and an important—as well as lucrative—part of more actors’ careers.

BACKGROUND:The audiobook business is booming. More consumers are discovering audiobooks as a source of entertainment and learning, as well as just a great way to find more time to read—in the car, at the gym, while cleaning the house, wherever. But even as this business is taking off, less than 5 percent of professionally published print books are made into audiobooks. So, Audible decided to help get more of them on the market. ACX was created to not only get more audiobooks produced, but also to provide them with strong retail channels: Audible.com, Amazon.com, and iTunes (where Audible is the exclusive audiobook supplier).

I live outside of the US and cannot provide a W9. Is ACX open to me?

At this time, ACX is open only to residents of the United States who have a US mailing address, a valid US Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), and have or can submit Form W9. For more information on Taxpayer Identification Numbers (TIN) please go to the IRS’ website. We hope to open up to a wider global audience in the future.

When I sign up for ACX, why does ACX need to know if I’m an author, literary agent, publisher, narrator, or studio Professional?

ACX needs to know whether you’re an audiobook Producer or a Rights Holder because that determines what kind of profile you’ll create with us. Essentially, on ACX, there are two roles—Rights Holders and Producers. Rights Holders are the people and entities that own or control the audio rights, and Producers are the people or entities that are capable of producing a commercial-ready audiobook. Narrators and studio professionals (studio owners, audio engineers, editors, or mastering engineers) fall into the category of audiobook Producers and can create profiles that include audio samples, and highlight themselves, their work, and their services. Authors, literary agents, and publishers are audiobook Rights Holders who create Title Profiles, which are summaries of each title they control and want turned into an audiobook.

TIP FOR NARRATORS: If your primary work is narration, then, when signing up at ACX, describe yourself as a narrator not a studio professional.

I am an agent who represents multiple authors, what is the best way for me to set up an account(s) on behalf of my authors?

The choice of how to structure your author’s ACX accounts is a matter of personal preference. Agents already participating in ACX so far have been considering these three options:

  1. Set up one account on behalf of all authors
  2. Set up multiple accounts, one for each author
  3. Allow authors to each set up and manage their own accounts

While ACX does not recommend a particular approach over another, these FAQs will give you the information needed to make an informed decision.

What do you mean by "studio professional"?

We use the term studio professional to loosely describe anyone involved in the actual production of an audiobook. Studio owners, audio engineers, narrators, editors, and mastering engineers are all studio professionals.

TIP FOR STUDIO PROFESSIONALS: We encourage studio professionals to meet and form alliances on ACX Through the site you can create trusted production teams that Rights Holders will turn to, time after time, to get great audiobooks made. We hope that studio professionals will feel entrepreneurial, and become Producers. By doing that, they can offer a Rights Holder a full-service audiobook production—either by themselves or through subcontracts with other studio professionals – that meets the standards set forth in ACX’s Rules for Audiobook Production.

What is this Twenty-five Dollar Bounty Payment?

To encourage Rights Holders and Producers to promote their audiobooks, ACX is offering a special Twenty-five Dollar Bounty Payment. If your audiobook is one of the first three purchases on Audible.com made by a new AudibleListener member then you’ll get paid. As a Rights Holder, if you produce your audiobook alone, you will receive the entire Twenty-five Dollar Bounty Payment. If you and a Producer work together under a Royalty Share deal, than the twenty-five Dollar Bounty Payment is split fifty-fifty, and both parties will receive $12.50.

Spread the word! We want you to use your online social network to tell everyone you know about your book. You viral marketing can drive how much you make!

All these and more details are all laid out in the Twenty-five Dollar Bounty Payment Program Terms and Conditions.

As you can imagine, these Twenty-five Dollar Bounty Payments can quickly outpace your royalties. Imagine that you sell two hundred audiobooks in your first month. If thirty of those sales are from new AudibleListener members, and your audiobook was one of their first three downloads, then you’ll earn seven hundred and fifty dollars in addition to your usual royalty! Let’s assume you chose non-exclusive distribution. That makes your usual royalty 25 percent. If the cost of your audiobook is three dollars per download of all two hundred books, making your total sales six hundred dollars, then you’ll receive t $3100 for selling two hundred audiobooks. That’s over fifteen dollars per sale!

ACX is doing this because we want you to promote the heck out of your new audiobook.

For marketing tools and tips that will help you increase your audiobook sales, see the Promote Yourself section of the website.