The arithmetic side by side

Audio book: 7.000000000000001% of the manuscript word count. A 90,000-word novel is $6,300.

Film book: 12% of the manuscript word count. The same novel is $10,800, and it carries the matching audio edition of that manuscript with it.

That second line is the whole decision for many authors: the film book is not 12% instead of 7%, it is 12% for both editions of the same book.

When audio first is plainly right

You have a series with readers waiting and a genre where listening is the habit — thriller, romance, litRPG, business nonfiction.

Your budget covers one edition and you need it earning inside a year. Audio retail pays out; a film book is bought as an asset and earns indirectly.

When a film book first is the better spend

Nobody can find you. A film book is the only production that leaves you with a complete edition and a hundred usable cuts of footage from the same session.

Your book is visual to its bones — fantasy, horror, historical, children's — and describing it has never worked as well as showing it.

You are launching a crowdfunding campaign, where a moving edition is the pledge video, the stretch goal and the reward all at once.

Asked and answered

Does the film book include the audiobook?

The matching audio book edition of the same manuscript rides with every film book commissioned here, because the cast performance underneath both is one performance.

Can I upgrade an audiobook into a film book later?

Yes. The cast performance is the expensive part and it is already made; the later build adds sound design, score and motion imagery on top of it.