Creating An Audiobook Will Make Free Money For You!

Have you written a book and self-published it on Amazon? Do you want to know how to leverage that book to make some extra cash for little to no cost?

Creating an audiobook is easy using any book you have published on Amazon, and better yet, you can even do it for absolutely free. This is done using ACX.COM, which is owned by Amazon.

I decided to give it a try

Over the past month, I’ve been busily creating an audiobook for each of the 15 books that I have published on Amazon. Six are done, and six are in production as of this writing.

Believe it or not, this is not an expensive process. Here’s the breakdown for each book:

• Existing book – You need to have produced a book on Amazon.
• Creating the audio – Take a 50/50 cut on royalties with the actor (the person speaking the book) and there is no cost.
• Book cover – You will need a book cover specifically made for your audiobook.

That’s all you need to create an audio book.

Creating the Audiobook

First you use the ACX interface to find your book in Amazon’s database. Once you’ve found it, fill in some information, then search for a producer (actor) and ask them if they want to help you with the book. You can offer a 50/50 cut or pay for their time.

if you don’t want to split the royalties with the actor, you can record the audiobook yourself.

Creating the Book Cover

Sample audiobook cover

The cover needs to be 2400 x 2400 pixels at 72 DPI (minimum) and in JPG format.

You can create it yourself in a graphics program or find someone to do it for you. Fiverr.Com is a great resource to find people who will do this for a $5 gig (job.) Most of these people will give you the source file (PSD) for an extra $5. Be sure to select this option. If you don’t, you will have to keep going back to the same person to get changes done. If you have the PSD file, you can make changes yourself, if you have Adobe Photoshop, or you can send the PSD to someone else.

Upload the cover to ACX and you’re done.

The Process

The whole process is very simple.

1. Select your book.
2. Upload a short sample.
3. Offer it to a producer.
4. Once the producer accepts, they will submit a few minute long audition.
5. Accept the audition (or ask for changes.)
6. The producer will create the first 15 minutes.
7. Accept it or ask for changes.
8. The producer will complete the audiobook.
9. Listen to it all and ask for changes as needed.
10. You can add the cover any time until you submit the audio to ACX.
11. Once the audio is the way you want it, submit the audio to ACX.
12. They will perform a short review of the audio, and either reject or accept it. If they reject it, they will tell you why and you can fix the problem and resubmit.
13. Once accepted, a few days or weeks later the audiobook will appear on Amazon, alongside your Kindle and/or paperback version.
14. You will receive 25 codes to use to give copies of the audiobook away for free to get reviews.
15. You have no control over the price of the audiobook. This is calculated by Amazon.

That’s almost literally all there is to the whole process.

Now get to marketing your book, and watch the money roll in.

Leave your thoughts about audiobooks in the comments below.

Richard Lowe Jr

Richard is the Owner and Senior Writer for The Writing King, a bestselling author, and ghostwriter. He’s written and published 63 books, ghostwritten 40+ books, as well as hundreds of blog articles.