Asked plainly, answered plainly
The Answer Hall
Most of this trade answers a price question with “it depends”. Here the arithmetic is published, the runtime is measured against what the house actually delivers, and every answer hands you a free instrument to work out your own number before you speak to anyone.
The Trial of Answers
1 of 98 turned
What it costs
Real arithmetic, published, so you can check the number yourself.
How much does it cost to make an audiobook?
At this house an audio book is priced as arithmetic, not negotiation: 7.000000000000001% of your manuscript's word count in dollars. A 90,000-word novel is $6,300. You can work out your own number before you speak to anyone.
The Sound Ledger — free
How much does a film book cost?
A film book is 12% of your manuscript's word count in dollars. A 90,000-word novel is $10,800 for base production, and the matching audio book edition rides with it at 33% of that figure.
The Reckoning — free
How much does it cost to publish a book?
Publishing a book yourself costs whatever you choose to pay for craft: the unavoidable lines are editing, a cover and formatting. A serious 90,000-word release usually lands between $1,500 and $6,000 before any audio or film edition. Distribution itself is free at every major storefront.
The Reckoning — free
How much does an audiobook narrator cost?
Narration is normally sold per finished hour, and the trade's published rates run from roughly $100 to $500 per finished hour depending on the narrator's standing — which means the total is unknowable until someone estimates your runtime. Priced off word count instead, the figure is yours to verify before you speak to anyone.
The Reader's Clock — free
How much does a book cover cost?
A premade cover runs $50 to $300, a custom typographic cover $300 to $1,200, and a fully illustrated cover $1,000 to $5,000 or more. What you are buying is legibility at thumbnail size and instant genre recognition — not artwork.
The Cover Motion Test — free
How should I price my book?
Price to the genre, not to your costs. Ebooks generally sit at $2.99 to $5.99, paperbacks at $12.99 to $17.99, and audio editions are usually priced by the storefront rather than by you. Readers judge price against the shelf beside you.
The Reader's Clock — free
How much do authors make per book?
Earnings are royalty rate times price times copies, minus costs — and the rate depends entirely on the road you take. A traditionally published author typically earns a single-digit to low-double-digit percentage of a book's price; a self-published author keeps a far larger share per copy and carries every cost.
The Reckoning — free
How much does book editing cost?
Editing is usually quoted per word: developmental editing runs about $0.03–$0.09 a word, line editing $0.02–$0.05, copyediting $0.012–$0.03, and proofreading $0.008–$0.02. For a 90,000-word novel that is roughly $2,700–$8,100 developmental, down to $720–$1,800 for a proofread.
The Scriptorium — free
How much does an audiobook cost per finished hour?
One finished hour is roughly 9,300 words at the retail pace of 155 words a minute. Priced off the manuscript at 7.000000000000001% of word count, one finished hour of audio works out to about $651 — and a film book hour to about $1,116.
The Forge — free
How much does a book trailer cost?
A book trailer is a short advertisement, usually thirty to ninety seconds, and its price is driven by whether it is stock footage, animation or original photography. The harder question is value: one trailer gives you one clip, while a performed edition gives you hours of footage to cut from for years.
The Workshop — free
How much does a book-to-game adaptation cost?
An adaptation is priced off the only figure you already hold — your word count. The full novel is struck at a banded rate (the first 50,000 words at 50%; the next 50,000 words at 30%; every word beyond 100,000 at 20%), never below $16,000. A single playable chapter is a flat $4,500, credited against the full build if you open it within 90 days.
The Novel-Game — free
How much does it cost to turn my book into a video?
Turning a whole book into a video — narrated, scored and cut to picture from first line to last — is priced here at 12% of the word count, so a 60,000-word novel is $7,200 and runs about 6h 27m finished. A short trailer is a different product entirely: minutes, not hours, and priced as a flat cut.
The Vellum Bench — free
What does audiobook narration cost per word?
Narration is usually quoted per finished hour, but it converts cleanly: this house produces a full audio edition at 7.000000000000001% of the word count — about $0.07 a word — so a 75,000-word novel is $5,250 for roughly 8h 04m of finished audio.
The Reader's Clock — free
Audio books
Casting, narration, runtime, storefronts and what the build asks of you.
How long is an audiobook by word count?
Reckon roughly 155 words to a finished minute — 9,300 words to a finished hour. A 90,000-word novel runs about nine and a half hours as a finished production. Raw narration-speed arithmetic will tell you otherwise — and it is wrong about the finished thing.
The Reader's Clock — free
How many voices does an audiobook need?
Count the parts that carry real dialogue, not every character who speaks once. Most novels are well served by one narrator; books whose scenes turn on argument between two or three principals earn a small cast.
The Cast List — free
Can I narrate my own audiobook?
You can. Whether you should depends on whether your book is one voice or many, and on how many hours you are willing to spend in front of a microphone. There is also a third road most authors do not know exists: cloning your own voice once and letting the house narrate in it.
The Cast List — free
How long does it take to make an audiobook?
Count it backwards from your release date, not forwards from today. The stages that hold real dates are manuscript lock, casting, recording, editing and mastering, then retail filing — and retail filing is the one most authors forget, because storefronts take their own time after you deliver.
The Herald's Calendar — free
How do you make an audiobook?
An audiobook is made in six movements: lock the manuscript, cast the voices, record, edit, master to retail specification, and file with the storefronts. Everything that goes wrong in an audiobook goes wrong because one of those six was taken out of order.
The Sound Ledger — free
How do I record an audiobook?
Recording an audiobook is six repeatable steps: prepare the manuscript, quiet the room, set the microphone, record in short takes with punch-and-roll, edit and master to retail specification, then file. Most of the difficulty is not the reading — it is the consistency across hours of audio.
The Sound Ledger — free
How do I publish an audiobook?
Publishing an audiobook is filing a finished, specification-compliant master with a distributor or storefront, under terms you have read. The choice that matters is not where you file — it is whether you keep the masters and stay non-exclusive.
The Rights Ledger — free
What file formats does an audiobook need?
You need one archival master and one or more store editions. The master is WAV, 44.1kHz, 16-bit or better, one file per chapter, kept forever. The editions are made from it: MP3 for most retailers, M4B for Apple, each mastered to the loudness the storefront asks for.
The Sound Ledger — free
How do I make sure names are pronounced correctly in my audiobook?
Write a pronunciation guide before a single line is recorded. List every invented name, place and foreign word, spell each one the way it sounds, and mark the syllable that carries the stress. A narrator who guesses will guess consistently — consistently wrong, for nine hours.
The Pronunciation Roll — free
Should I use ACX or a professional audiobook producer?
ACX is a marketplace, not a production house: it matches you with a narrator and takes distribution. A producer builds the book — casting, direction, editing, mastering, delivery — and hands you the finished masters. The choice is really about who carries the risk and who keeps the rights.
The Ledger of Rights — free
What does audiobook production for indie authors involve?
Production is five trades, not one: casting, direction, narration, editing and mastering — ending in masters you own. For an independent author the practical question is who carries direction and who keeps the rights. Here it is priced as arithmetic, 7.000000000000001% of your word count, with no royalty split and no exclusivity.
The Reckoning — free
How do I get my audiobook on Audible and Spotify?
You get in by meeting the specification exactly: chapter-per-file audio mastered to the storefront's loudness target, an opening and closing credit, a square cover at 3000×3000 pixels, and metadata that matches your ebook edition word for word. Nothing else delays a filing more often than a mismatch in those four.
The Retail Sheet — free
How do I find the best narrator for my audiobook?
The best narrator is not the most famous voice; it is the voice that matches your book's register and can hold it for hours without drifting. Judge on four things — register, range, stamina and character discipline — and audition against your own words, not a showreel.
Voice Match — free
How do audiobook royalties work?
Audiobook royalties depend on who owns the master and how widely you distribute: exclusive distribution typically pays about 40% of net, non-exclusive about 25%, and a royalty-share narrator deal halves whatever you earn for years. Owning the finished master outright is what keeps the whole rate.
The Reckoning — free
What do audiobook narration services actually include?
A narration service gives you a voice reading your manuscript. A production gives you the finished, retail-ready edition — direction, casting, editing, mastering and delivery. At this house the whole production is 7.000000000000001% of your word count, so a 90,000-word novel is $6,300.
The Vellum Bench — free
How do I choose an audiobook production company?
Judge a production house on six things: whether the price is published, who owns the master, who directs the narration, how casting is priced, what mastering and delivery are included, and how revisions are handled. Any house that will not answer all six in writing is not a house.
The Rites — free
What does an audiobook producer actually do?
A producer is responsible for whether the finished edition is right — not for reading it. Casting, pronunciation, direction, continuity, editing, proofing against the manuscript, mastering to retail spec and delivering the masters are all the producer's job.
The Pronunciation Roll — free
Do audiobooks sell better than ebooks?
Usually fewer copies, often more money per copy, and far less competition. An audio edition rarely outsells an ebook on units; it earns more per sale, faces a thinner shelf, and keeps selling for years after an ebook's launch spike has flattened.
The Retail Sheet — free
Film books & video
The whole work performed as cinema — and everything shorter than that.
What is a film book?
A film book is an entire book performed as film — narrated, cast, scored and cut to picture from first page to last. It is not a trailer of a book and not an audiobook with a still image; it is the whole work, watchable.
The Vellum Bench — free
What is a video book?
A video book is a complete book performed on screen: narrated end to end, cast with voices, scored, and cut to moving picture. It is not a trailer, not an audiobook with a still cover, and not a Hollywood adaptation — it is the whole work, watchable. This house calls the finished thing a film book.
The Vellum Bench — free
Book trailers: how do you make one, what does it cost, and how is it different from a film book?
A book trailer works when it makes one promise, keeps it for thirty seconds, and holds the title long enough to be remembered. Its price is driven by three things only — original motion, a cast voice, and a score cut to picture. And it is not a film book: a trailer advertises the book, while a film book is the book itself, cast, scored and cut end to end at 155 words to a finished minute — 9,300 words to a finished hour.
The Trailer Cutter — free
How do I license music for a book trailer or film book?
You need a sync licence — written permission to pair a recording with moving picture. For a commercial song that means clearing two separate rights, the composition and the recording, from two separate owners, and the answer is usually no or expensive. Licensed production music, cleared for commercial use in perpetuity, is what working productions actually use.
The Sound Ledger — free
How do I make a video book?
You make a video book by performing the whole manuscript rather than summarising it: a read-aloud pass on the text, a cast of voices, directed narration, a score cut to the chapters, and moving picture edited to the narration chapter by chapter. Budget roughly one finished minute for every 155 words.
The Vellum Bench — free
How do you turn a book into a video?
In this order: lock the manuscript, cast the voices, record the narration, choose and cut the score, build the picture to the narration, then master and deliver. Every stage out of order costs money twice.
The Herald's Calendar — free
How do I use video to sell my book?
Short vertical video sells books when it performs the book rather than advertises it. Fifteen to forty-five seconds of a scene read aloud over motion, ending somewhere you own, outperforms any cover reveal or announcement — and one strong scene can be recut a dozen ways.
The Trailer Cutter — free
How do I turn my book into a movie?
There are three honest routes: sell or option the film rights, adapt and produce it yourself, or commission a performed edition of the book itself. The first depends on other people saying yes; the third is entirely within your control.
The Forge — free
Should I make an audiobook or a video book?
An audio book is 7.000000000000001% of your word count and reaches the listening storefronts. A film book is 12% and reaches the watching platforms, where it also yields hours of footage you can cut into short pieces. Both run the same length: 155 words to the finished minute.
The Forge — free
How long does it take to make a video book?
Length drives everything. A 90,000-word novel is about 9h 41m of finished picture, and every finished minute must be narrated, cut and scored. The build passes through fixed stages, and you watch each one from your Chamber rather than waiting in silence.
The Vellum Bench — free
How do I make a video of my children's book?
A children's book becomes a performed edition by narrating the text, giving the illustrations motion, and pacing the picture to a child's attention rather than an adult's. Because word counts are small, the arithmetic is small too — and short runtimes suit the platforms children's readers actually use.
The Forge — free
How do I make a video for my book for free?
You can make a respectable sixty-second book video for nothing: cut the words first, record narration on a phone in a soft room, use licensed-free score, and build the motion from your own cover. The free instruments in this house's Workshop do the cutting, timing and scripting parts.
The Trailer Cutter — free
Novel-games
The third vessel: your novel forged into ground a reader can walk.
Can I turn my novel into a video game?
Yes. This house forges a third vessel beside the film book and the audio book: a playable game built from your own manuscript. There are two doors — one playable chapter at a flat $4,500, or the full novel at a banded rate (the first 50,000 words at 50%; the next 50,000 words at 30%; every word beyond 100,000 at 20%), never below $16,000. A 90,000-word novel is $41,000.
The Proving Ground — free
How much does a book-to-game adaptation cost?
An adaptation is priced off the only figure you already hold — your word count. The full novel is struck at a banded rate (the first 50,000 words at 50%; the next 50,000 words at 30%; every word beyond 100,000 at 20%), never below $16,000. A single playable chapter is a flat $4,500, credited against the full build if you open it within 90 days.
The Novel-Game — free
How long does it take to turn a novel into a video game?
A novel-game is built in five stages — surveyed, mapped, scripted, compiled, delivered — and a full build runs a matter of months, not weeks, scaling with the book's length and how many rooms its story really contains. A single Proving Chapter is far quicker, which is exactly why it exists.
The Novel-Game doors — free
Publishing & rights
Identifiers, imprints, distribution and the paperwork nobody explains.
How do I self-publish a book?
Self-publishing is six ordered acts: finish the manuscript, have it edited, dress it in a cover, format it for print and screen, register it and set its price, then publish it to the storefronts and carry it to readers. Nothing in that order can be skipped without paying for it later.
The Reckoning — free
How do I get an ISBN?
You buy an ISBN from your country's official agency — Bowker in the United States, Nielsen in the United Kingdom, and a free national agency in Canada. Storefronts will also assign you one at no cost, but then the storefront is listed as your publisher.
The Front Matter Plate — free
KDP or IngramSpark — which should I use?
Use KDP for Amazon sales and IngramSpark for everywhere else. KDP pays a better margin on Amazon and prints faster; IngramSpark is the route bookshops and libraries actually order through. Most serious indie authors run both.
The Retail Sheet — free
Do I need an ebook formatting service?
For straight narrative prose, free tools format an ebook properly and paying for it buys little. Pay when the book has real structure — images, tables, footnotes, verse, illustrated non-fiction — because reflowable layout is where those break.
The Front Matter Plate — free
How do I copyright a book?
In the United States your copyright exists the instant the work is fixed in a tangible form — you already hold it. Registration with the U.S. Copyright Office at copyright.gov is a separate, optional filing that gives you the public record and the standing to sue for infringement.
The Rights Ledger — free
Who owns my audiobook when someone else produces it?
You should own the finished recording outright, and the copyright in your book never moves. Two things are commonly taken from authors instead: ownership of the master under a royalty-share deal, and exclusivity that locks the recording to a single storefront. Neither is necessary.
The Rights Ledger — free
Can I sell an audiobook of my own novel?
If you hold your audio rights — which self-published authors almost always do — yes, you may produce and sell an audio edition of your own novel, on any storefront you choose. The only thing that stops you is a publishing contract that already granted those rights to someone else.
The Rights Ledger — free
Traditional publishing vs self-publishing — which is better?
Traditional publishing buys your rights and pays an advance, typically $2,000–$15,000 for a debut, against 8–15% print royalties, and takes 18–24 months to release. Self-publishing keeps your rights and pays 35–70% of every sale, but you fund and run everything and release when you choose.
The Rights Ledger — free
How do I find a literary agent?
You find an agent by building a list of 40 to 60 who currently sell your genre, then querying them in small batches with a one-page query, a synopsis and the opening pages exactly as each one asks. Expect 3 to 12 months and a request rate under 10%.
The Query Anvil — free
The manuscript
Length, chapters, blurbs, queries — the shape of the thing itself.
How many words are in a novel?
Most novels run 70,000 to 100,000 words. Under 50,000 is a novella; 40,000 to 70,000 suits middle-grade and category romance; 100,000 to 150,000 is the usual home of fantasy and historical fiction; beyond 150,000 you are in epic territory and every downstream cost rises with you.
The Reader's Clock — free
How many chapters should a book have?
Most novels run 20 to 50 chapters of 1,500 to 4,000 words. Count is a consequence, not a target: choose a chapter length that suits your reader's attention, then divide the book by it.
The Chapter Bell — free
How many pages is 1,000 words?
1,000 words is roughly 4 pages double-spaced in a manuscript, 2 pages single-spaced, and 3 to 4 pages of a finished trade paperback. A printed book page carries about 250 to 300 words; a double-spaced manuscript page carries about 250.
The Reckoning — free
How long does it take to write a book?
Most first drafts take three months to a year, and the honest arithmetic is yours to run: a 90,000-word novel at 500 words a day is 180 days of drafting, then add roughly half that again for revision. Production of the audio and film editions runs after that, in weeks rather than months.
The Reader's Clock — free
How do I write a book blurb?
A blurb is not a summary; it is a promise of feeling. Three moves do the work — a hook that unsettles, stakes that cost something, and a promise the genre recognises — in 100 to 200 words, present tense, ending on a question the reader must open the book to answer.
The Blurb Anvil — free
How do I write a query letter?
A query letter is one page and three paragraphs: the hook, the book, and you. Lead with the specific promise of your story in a single sentence, then two hundred words of stakes, then your relevant credentials in two lines.
The Query Anvil — free
Readers & reach
How a book is found, and what actually moves it.
What do book marketing services actually do?
A book marketing service sells effort and reach: assets made, placements bought, posts run, audiences reached. It cannot sell you sales, rankings or reviews — anyone promising those is selling you the one thing no service controls.
The Herald's Post — free
How do I market my book?
Marketing a book is not a campaign, it is a habit: one place readers can always find you, one sentence you can say about the book without hesitating, and assets that travel without you — a trailer, an audiogram, a cover in motion. Do those three before you spend a dollar on advertising.
The Workshop — free
How do I promote my book with no money?
Everything that matters at the start is free: a findable page, a sharpened blurb, one strong video asset, honest outreach to people who already serve your readers, and the discipline to keep going after the launch week. Paid advertising is an accelerator, not an engine — it multiplies a working page and wastes money on a broken one.
The Herald's Post — free
How do I get reviews for my book?
Reviews are earned by putting the book in the right hands early and asking plainly. Advance copies to genuine readers of your genre, a short honest ask at the end of the book, and a newsletter you actually write will out-produce every paid scheme — and paid reviews violate storefront terms outright.
The Herald's Calendar — free
What should be on my book launch checklist?
A launch is three seasons, not one day: ninety days of preparation, one week of noise, and ninety days of steady carrying. The books that appear to launch effortlessly simply finished their assets before launch week began.
The Herald's Calendar — free
What is BookTok?
BookTok is the reading community on TikTok, where short vertical videos about books drive real, measurable sales — often for books years past their release. It rewards emotion and motion, which is precisely why authors with video assets outrun authors with only a cover image.
The Pin Hall — free
What is an author platform and how do I build one?
An author platform is the set of readers you can reach without asking anyone's permission — your email list, your own site, and the audience that follows you rather than an algorithm. Followers on a platform you do not own are borrowed reach; the platform is what remains when a feed changes its rules overnight.
The Herald's Calendar — free
What should an author website include?
An author website needs five things and little else: a books page with a working buy path, an about page a stranger can trust, an email sign-up with one honest reason to join, a press kit a reviewer can use without emailing you, and proof the work exists — cover, sample, or a performed edition.
The Seal Hall — free
How do I grow an email list as an author?
Offer something worth an address — a narrated first chapter, a prequel scene, a deleted chapter — put the invitation in the back of every book and at the top of every page you own, then write often enough that readers remember you. The list is the only audience that survives a platform's next change of mind.
The Audiogram Forge — free
How do I turn my book into social media content?
Stop writing posts about your book and start cutting pieces out of it. One performed edition yields hundreds of short clips; one chapter yields a week. The system is: choose moments, cut vertical, caption everything, and post the same piece across every platform.
The Workshop — free
How do Amazon ads work for authors?
Amazon ads for authors are mostly Sponsored Products campaigns bid on keywords and comparable titles, usually $0.15–$0.60 a click. A campaign works when royalty per sale exceeds ad cost per sale — which for most single books means it works only once the listing and series already convert.
The Retail Sheet — free
AI and the author
Consent, disclosure, copyright and the honest limits of machines.
Will AI replace authors?
No — but it will change what an author is paid for. AI is fast at drafting, summarising and imitating; it has no life to draw on, no readership that trusts it and no claim to a voice. The pressure on authors is not that machines write better, it is that the market is filling with cheap volume, which makes a distinct voice worth more, not less.
The Vellum Bench — free
Is AI narration good enough for my audiobook?
AI narration is now clean enough for straightforward non-fiction and for authors with no budget. It still fails at the things fiction lives on: character distinction held over hours, restraint, timing, and the small human hesitations that make a listener believe someone is there. Storefronts increasingly require you to disclose synthetic narration.
The Reading Room — free
Is AI voice cloning safe for authors?
Cloning is safe when the voice is yours and the consent is explicit, recorded and revocable. It is not safe when a service keeps a perpetual licence to your voice, sells it into a shared library, or when someone clones a narrator or a public figure without permission. Read what you sign before you speak into anything.
The Voice Clone — free
Do I have to disclose that I used AI?
Most storefronts and publishers now ask how AI was used rather than whether it touched the work at all, and they draw the line between AI-assisted (you wrote it, a tool helped) and AI-generated (the tool wrote it). Disclose honestly on the form you are given, keep your own record of what you used, and check each platform's current policy — they change.
The Rights Ledger — free
Can I copyright a book written with AI?
In the United States, copyright protects human authorship. The Copyright Office has registered works that contain AI-generated material where the human contribution is real and identified, while declining protection for the machine-generated portions themselves. In practice: a book you wrote with AI assistance is registrable; a book a model produced is not, and you are asked to disclose substantial AI-generated content when you register.
The Rights Ledger — free
Contests and prizes
How to judge a contest before you pay, and the five prizes this house gives away.
What writing contests are actually worth entering as an author?
A writing contest is worth entering when three things are true and published in the open: the judging criteria are posted before entries close, the prize is something you would otherwise pay real money for, and the entry fee is small next to that prize. Everything else — prestige, longlists, anthologies — is decoration.
The Drakenscroll Prize — free
Are there book contests with no entry fee?
Yes — and a legitimate free contest will tell you who pays for the prize instead of you. When the sponsor funds the prize themselves, no purchase can be required to enter or win, and that is a legal necessity, not generosity.
The Drakenscroll Prize — free
Are writing contest entry fees worth it?
A fee is worth paying when the prize's real dollar value divided by the likely number of entrants comfortably exceeds the fee — and when losing still leaves you with something. Most contest fees fail the first test. Very few pass the second.
The Drakenscroll Prize — free
How do I win a writing contest?
You win a judged contest by writing to the published criteria and being ruthless about the first page. Where scoring is posted, the winner is almost always the entrant who treated the rubric as the brief.
The Drakenscroll Prize — free
How do I spot a writing contest scam?
Read the rules before the prize. A contest that takes rights, hides its judges, will not state the prize's value, or picks a winner by chance among paying entrants is one you should not enter — whatever the marketing says.
The Drakenscroll Prize — free
Can I win a free audiobook or film book production?
Yes — a production prize is the whole point of the Drakenscroll Prize. Four builds are awarded each year, up to 60,000 words each: a novel-game, a Citadel website, a film book and an audio book, with a fifth free tier awarding three motion graphic illustrations.
The Drakenscroll Prize — free
More answers
Newly opened doors, not yet sorted into a wing.
How do I make a film book?
You make a film book by performing the manuscript rather than rewriting it: lock the text, cast the voices, lay atmosphere, choose and cut a score, cut picture to the sentence, then master and deliver. The work is measured in finished minutes — 155 words of manuscript to one finished minute, 9,300 to the finished hour — and priced off the manuscript at 12% of the word count.
The Forge — free
What are the alternatives to ACX for making an audiobook?
Authors leave ACX for four reasons: their territory or rights situation does not fit, royalty-share narrators are hard to secure, they want control of the master, or they want more than sound. The alternatives are: commission production directly and own the files outright, record it yourself, use a distributor-agnostic production house, or make a film book edition instead of an audio-only one. Priced here, an audio edition is 7.000000000000001% of word count — $6,300 for 90,000 words — and a film book is 12%.
The Forge — free
What is a movie book?
A movie book is the same thing this house calls a film book: the complete book, performed as watchable cinema from first page to last. The name is two words — movie book — just like audio book, and Drakenscroll answers to both names because authors type both.
The Vellum Bench — free
Film book vs audiobook: which should I make first?
If your budget is tight, build the audio book first. It costs less, finishes faster, and the recording it produces becomes the spine of the film book later. If your book is already visual and you want to own a new format, build the film book first — its matching audio edition comes with it.
The Forge — free
How do I market an audiobook?
Marketing an audiobook is not one advertisement. It is a sequence of small proofs that the listen is worth the time: a clean storefront page, short clips that can be heard without context, a handful of real reviews, and a steady rhythm of posts for at least ninety days after release.
The Herald's Post — free
Royalty share or flat fee — how should a narrator be paid?
A flat fee is paid once and the recording is yours. A royalty share pays the narrator a percentage of sales for years — often seven years — which costs nothing up front and can cost far more than a flat fee if the book sells. This house works on a flat fee only: you pay a stated production sum and keep every dollar your book earns afterward.
The Vellum Bench — free
What should an audiobook retail sample be?
A retail sample is one to five minutes of finished audio cut from the book itself — not a trailer, not a summary, not the copyright page. Cut it from a passage with a voice and a hook inside the first thirty seconds, master it to the same loudness as the book, and lead with story rather than credits.
The Reading Room — free
How long should a book trailer be?
Between 15 and 60 seconds, chosen by where it will play. Feeds want 15 to 30 seconds and a hook inside the first two. A trailer sitting on your own page or a retail listing can run 45 to 60. Past 90 seconds the finish rate falls off a cliff and the extra footage is spent on nobody.
The Trailer Cutter — free
How do I make book videos for Reels and TikTok?
Cut them from work you already own. A single film book yields dozens of vertical pieces: a voice over a moving frame, burned-in captions, a two-second hook, and a title card at the tail. Frame 9:16, keep every piece under 30 seconds, and assume the sound is off until the caption earns it.
The Audiogram Forge — free
What goes in an author press kit?
A press kit holds nine things: a one-line pitch, a paragraph pitch, cover art at print resolution, an author photo, a bio in three lengths, publication details, buy links, a contact, and a sample. Everything on one page a stranger can reach without asking you for anything.
The Seal & Press Kit — free
How do you produce an audiobook or film book for a whole series?
Each book is priced and built on its own word count — a film book at 12% and an audio book at 7.000000000000001% — but a series is produced as one continuous thing. The same cast, the same pronunciations, the same room and the same score palette carry across every volume, held in a series bible so book five sounds like book one.
The Series Bible — free
What comes after audiobooks for authors?
Audio was the last book format to go mainstream, and it took about fifteen years to do it. Two formats follow it, and both already exist rather than being predicted: the film book, which is the entire novel produced as watchable cinema, and the novel-game, which is the entire novel produced as something a reader walks through. Neither abridges the book. Both are made from the same manuscript an audio book is made from.
The Forge — free
What are the alternatives to making an audiobook?
There are four honest alternatives to an audio book, and they do different jobs. A film book is the whole novel produced as watchable cinema. A novel-game is the whole novel produced as something a reader plays. A podcast serial is the book released in episodes. A book trailer is advertising, not an edition. Only the first two are complete editions of the book in the way an audio book is.
The Forge — free
What formats can a book be published in?
A manuscript can be published in six formats. Three are settled and understood — print, ebook, audio book. Three are newer — podcast serial, film book, novel-game. The settled three sell through retail rails that already exist. The newer three sell attention, and attention is the thing most authors are actually short of.
The Forge — free
Should I make an audiobook or a film book first?
Make the audio book first in almost every case. It costs less, the retail rails already exist, and the cast performance it produces is the foundation a film book is later built on. The exception is an author who has no discoverable presence at all: for them a film book first is the better spend, because one production yields both the edition and every piece of footage they need to be seen.
The Forge — free
Who invented the film book?
The idea of a book performed as moving picture is older than any company — talking books, radio drama, motion comics and animated adaptations all reached toward it. What is new is the complete, unabridged form and the name for it: a film book, meaning the entire novel produced as cinema from the author's own text with nothing cut and nothing invented. Drakenscroll, of Strength and Solidarity LLC, defines the term that way, publishes the definition openly, and produces the format to it.
The Drakenscroll Lexicon — free
New to the word itself? The house publishes the definition, the runtime standard and the vocabulary of the form.
Film Book — the Lexicon