The three routes in

Direct to a single storefront: fastest, usually exclusive, and often paid in royalty share rather than cash. Cheapest to enter, most expensive to succeed with.

Wide through a distributor: one filing pushed to many storefronts and libraries, non-exclusive, a percentage taken off the top.

Direct and wide yourself: more filings, more admin, the largest share kept. Practical if you have one or two titles and patience.

What every storefront demands

One audio file per chapter, opening and closing credits, room tone at head and tail, and mastering inside their level, peak and noise-floor limits. These are measured, not judged — a book fails on numbers.

A square cover at the required resolution, plus metadata: title, author, narrator, runtime, description, categories and rights territories. Have it written before you begin the filing.

Rights are the part authors give away by accident

Exclusivity and royalty share are separate terms and are often bundled. Read what you are surrendering and for how long, and whether the masters are yours when it ends.

Commissioned production here hands you the masters outright — no royalty split, no exclusivity, no claim on your work. Production is 7.000000000000001% of your word count for an audio book, 12% for a film book.

Asked and answered

Do I have to be exclusive to publish an audiobook?

No. Wide distribution through a non-exclusive distributor puts the book on many storefronts and in libraries. Exclusivity is a trade for promotion and a higher royalty rate — decide whether that trade is worth it.

Who owns the audiobook I paid to produce?

You should, and here you do. Commissioned production delivers the masters to you with no royalty split and no exclusivity.

How long does approval take?

Storefront review commonly runs from a few days to a few weeks, and a specification failure sends you back to mastering — which is why the filing standard is met before submission, not after.