Out Loud

What an Audiobook Costs Now, and Whether It Pays

The cost floor for narration fell out inside eighteen months. Every older audiobook guide describes a business that no longer exists.

Out Loud is a book in the Indie Author Guide Line: short, source-checked guides for independent authors who have finished writing and now have to be found. This book describes the audiobook business as of its check date, and states plainly that the check date is the most important thing in it.

Written for the author with no money and one book, who could never have afforded audio before, this book prices the decision honestly rather than romanticizing it.

What's inside:

• Machine narration versus hired narration versus royalty share, priced against each other
• What exclusivity costs on the audio side, and how it differs from the ebook side
• Which categories actually consume audio, and which genuinely do not
• What a listener notices about narration quality, and what they don't
• The honest position on giving a machine your voice, stated without hedging
• Why every figure here is dated, and why that date matters more than the figure itself

This is not a promise that audio is right for your book. What it will do is price the current decision honestly, machine narration included, so you can weigh it against what you actually have to spend.

From the Indie Author Guide Line, from Novel Concepts Publishing.