What's the Deal?


  1. Production & Payment Choices for ACX Users
  2. ACX Escalator Royalty Rates
  3. Common Questions

Production & Payment Choices for ACX Users

ACX gives you options.

Rights Holders

  • Want to choose the Producer of your audiobook? ACX helps you get auditions and proposals from multiple Producers and choose the right Producer for you.

  • Not sure whether you want to pay your Producer a flat fee or pay your Producer out of revenues received from the sale of your audiobook? ACX lets you do either. You and your Producer can agree to a Pay for Production Fee (a one-time flat fee) or a Royalty Share Deal (in which case your Producer won’t earn money up front, but will instead share in the proceeds from the sale of your audiobook fifty-fifty). See below for details.

  • Want a higher royalty rate on sales of your audiobook? You can opt for a significantly higher ACX royalty rate by granting Audible exclusive distribution rights to your ACX-produced audiobook. If you want to keep more distribution options open, you can distribute your audiobook through ACX on a nonexclusive basis and receive the standard ACX royalty rate. See below for details.

Audiobook Producers

  • Choose your rate for narration/production on a book-by-book basis.

  • You can earn a flat fee for your production work for an audiobook (a Pay for Production Deal), or agree to a Royalty Share Deal with the Rights Holder and earn half the royalties from each sale of the audiobook.

Three Options For You

Here’s a summary comparison of the three basic payment and distribution options currently available for audio production deals on ACX. Note that this is a summary only. See the ACX Book Posting Agreement and Production Standard Terms for actual terms that apply:

option 1

Royalty Share

with Exclusive Distribution to Audible

option 2 *

Pay For Production (Flat Fee)

with Exclusive Distribution to Audible

option 3 *

Pay For Production (Flat Fee)

with Non-Exclusive Distribution Rights to Audible

Payment to Producer

Choose a Royalty Share deal or a one-time Pay for Production fee.

Royalty payments from Audible are shared equally between Rights Holder and Producer

Rights Holder pays Producer a one-time fee for production

Distribution

Grant Audible exclusive or non-exclusive distribution rights. Either way is powerful— our third party distributors get audiobooks in front of buyers.
The difference is this: Royalty rates are higher when distribution is left exclusively to ACX.

ACX exclusive distribution—
through Audible.com, Amazon.com, and iTunes** via ACX, as well as wherever else Audible chooses. Under this model, Audible has the exclusive right to distribute the audiobook. If you choose this option, the audiobook cannot be distributed by any entity except ACX in any market or format.

ACX exclusive distribution—
through Audible.com, Amazon.com, and iTunes** via ACX, as well as wherever else Audible chooses. Under this model, Audible has the exclusive right to distribute the audiobook.If you choose this option, the audiobook cannot be distributed by any entity except ACX in any market or format.

Non-exclusive distribution—
through Audible.com, Amazon.com, and iTunes** via ACX, as well as wherever else Rights Holder chooses. Under this model, Rights Holder can grant distribution rights to parties other than Audible in any market or any format.

Royalty Rate

ACX royalty rates increase with every 500 books sold.

50–90% of retail sales split equally between Rights Holder and Producer. In other words, each gets 25–45% of total retail sales. The royalty rate will depend on the number of audiobooks that Audible has sold at the time owed payments are calculated.
See how this adds up in the escalator royalty chart below.

50–90% of retail sales paid to Rights Holder. The royalty rate will depend on the number of audiobooks that Audible has sold at the time owed payments are calculated.
See how this adds up in the escalator royalty chart below.

25–70% of retail sales paid to Rights Holder. The royalty rate will depend on the number of audiobooks that Audible has sold at the time owed payments are calculated.
See how this adds up in the escalator royalty chart below.

Bounty Payment

Earnings can increase with these extra payments.

ACX pays Rights Holder and Producer twenty-five dollars every time the audiobook is among the first three audiobooks purchased by an AudibleListener member on Audible.com. The twenty-five dollar payment is split fifty-fifty between Rights Holder and Producer, amounting to $12.50 each. See terms.

ACX pays Rights Holder $25 every time the audiobook is among the first three audiobooks purchased by an AudibleListener member on Audible.com. See terms.

Royalty Payment
Frequency

ACX sends a monthly statement and a monthly check (when there’s at least $50 to be paid).

Separate checks sent monthly to Rights Holder and to Producer (when there’s at least $50 to be paid).

Monthly to Rights Holder (when there’s at least $50 to be paid).

Term of Audible Distribution Rights

Seven years

Distribution Territory

If you’re a Rights Holder who’s unsure if you have the proper rights to your work, to find out more information click here.

ACX supports Worldwide and ten other distribution territory options.Learn more here.

*Note: If you’re a Rights Holders with an already-finished audiobook that you want to make available for distribution through ACX—or if you want to produce your audiobook independent of ACX and then make it available for distribution through ACX—you can deliver the completed audiobook to Audible through ACX by following the instructions in the Production tab of your ACX title profile. You will still have the option of granting Audible exclusive or non-exclusive distribution rights in the completed audiobook, per the terms of columns two and three in the above chart.
 
**As of May 2011, Audible.com has three stores (US, UK, Germany), and iTunes has twenty-three stores (AU, AT, BE, CA, CH, DE, DK, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, IE, IT, JP, LU, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PT, SE, US) that will sell your audiobook.

ACX Escalator Royalty Rates

ACX pays royalties to the Rights Holder and, if the Rights Holder and the Producer have agreed to a Royalty Share deal, royalties are also paid to the Producer. For more details please see the ACX Royalty Terms and Procedures. For you visual thinkers out there, here are some graphical representations of how the ACX Escalator Royalty Rates work.

The graph below compares, for the benefit of the Rights Holders, the royalty rates for ACX’s exclusive model with the royalty rates for ACX’s non-exclusive model.

For example, if Audible or any of Audible’s third party distributors sell a total of 1,100 copies of an audiobook created on ACX and the Rights Holder has granted Audible exclusive distribution rights, Audible will pay the Rights Holder a royalty of 50 percent for the initial five hundred units, then 51 percent for the next five hundred units sold, then 52 percent for the next five hundred units sold. If the Rights Holder has granted Audible nonexclusive distribution rights and Audible has sold the same 1,100 copies of the audiobook, Audible will pay the Rights Holder a royalty of 25 percent for the initial five hundred units, then 26 percent for the next five hundred units sold, then 27 percent for the next five hundred units sold, etc., per the Escalator Royalty Rates Chart above.

The graph below displays, for the benefit of the Rights Holders and Producers, how ACX’s Royalty Share Deals work. The Rights Holder and Producer split all royalties fifty-fifty.

For example, if Audible or any of Audible’s third party distributors sell a total of 1,100 copies of an audiobook created on ACX and the Rights Holder and Producer have entered into a Royalty Share deal, then Audible will pay the Rights Holder and Producer a royalty of 25 percent each for the initial five hundred units, then 25.5 percent each for the next five hundred units sold, then 26 percent each for the next five hundred units sold, etc., per Option #1 in the above Escalator Royalty Rates Chart.

Common Questions

1. How much can a Rights Holder earn from ACX?

That’s going to be determined by:

  • Whether the audiobook is being distributed exclusively through ACX or non-exclusively (ACX exclusive distribution pays a much higher royalty rate)
  • How many audiobooks are sold at the time Audible calculates royalty payments
  • Whether the Producer is sharing royalties or paid a flat fee
  • How aggressively you market your book to help increase Twenty-five Dollar Bounty payments

2. How much will my audiobook sell for in stores?

Each retailer of your audiobook independently prices your product and determines such price in their sole discretion. While not always the case, the regular price on Audible.com for the product is generally priced based on its length, as follows:

  • Under 3 hours: under $10
  • 3 – 5 hours: $10 - $20
  • 5–10 hours: $15 - $25
  • 10–20 hours: $20 - $30
  • Over 20 hours: $25 - $35

To be clear, although the above represents general guidelines as retailer of audiobooks sold on Audible.com, Audible retains the sole discretion to set the price of the audiobooks it sells. Additionally, on Audible.com, consumers can buy your audiobook “a la carte” for the above price, but many Audible customers are AudibleListener members who can purchase the audiobook with an Audible “credit” which they get as part of their Audible membership. These credits are generally for about fifteen dollars per month. For more about AudibleListener membership, please check out the Audible.com store. Yes, AudibleListener members end up paying less per audiobook, but they are voracious audiobook consumers who tend to purchase over seventeen audiobooks per year from Audible.com. This is much higher than other audiobook customers, who generally purchase just one or two books per year. Please note that we do not, and cannot, control how iTunes prices your audiobook in their store. However, no matter how they price it, you will be paid the same amount as you are for Audible “a la carte” sales (i.e. a percentage of Audible’s “a la carte” price).

3. What's the $25 bounty payment about? Tell me more!

ACX is currently running a program that has the potential to earn ACX users even more money than just the ACX royalties.

Rights Holders who choose a Pay for Production deal on ACX receive a Twenty-five dollar Bounty Payment whenever one of their audiobooks is one of the first three purchases by an AudibleListener member. Producers and Rights Holders who enter into Royalty Share Deal split a Twenty-five Dollar Bounty Payment—$12,50 each—whenever an audiobook they produce under a Royalty Share deal is one of the first three purchases by an AudibleListener member.

Tell your friends. Use your online social network to tell everyone you know and earn one hundred dollars, one thousand dollars, or even more. Your viral marketing drives how much you make. Learn more here

4. What if I make my title available on ACX for production and then change my mind?

No problem. You can remove a title you post on ACX any time before you enter into an ACX Audiobook Production Agreement with a Producer. See detailed terms in the Book Posting Agreement.