Karen Commins

Author Seeks Narrator: Must Love Books

6 December 2017

Indie audiobook publishing, where you produce your audiobook and retain all audio rights, follows a similar format as Internet dating. You register on a site and create an intriguing profile hoping to attract Mr. or Ms. Right for a long-term relationship.

In this 2-part series, I’ll discuss audiobook publishing using the Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX.com), the first and best-known audiobook matchmaking site. You’ll see how to maximize your ACX title listing to captivate your ideal narrator! I’ll address independent production on other platforms in future articles.

Finding Your Own Road to Tara

8 November 2017

A few years ago, I started my audio publishing empire with a public domain book. Today, I am thrilled to publish my first contemporary audiobook ROAD TO TARA: THE LIFE OF MARGARET MITCHELL by Anne Edwards.

I’m not the first narrator to acquire audio rights and publish an audiobook of a current book. Nevertheless, I wanted to retrace my steps in this article to inspire more of you to follow a similar path. As actor/writer/director Bob Fraser used to urge people, you can cast yourself!

Are You Leaving Money on the Table?

3 October 2017

Each day an author doesn’t have her books in audio, she’s leaving money on the table.

Links to Help Authors Know Their Rights

9 September 2017

Last updated 12/18/20

My fellow narrators and I often contact authors about creating audiobooks of their books. Many times, the author tells me that her publisher has the audio rights, or she isn’t sure who owns them.

Authors could make more money by exercising as many subsidiary rights as possible for each book, especially the audio rights. The audiobook industry is on a 3-year trend of double digit growth that shows no sign of slowing.

If you have your audio rights, you could contract with a narrator or producer to create an audiobook. You also could choose to license your audio rights to a publisher or producer. The trade-off is that you earn more royalties if you retain your rights and contract with a narrator or producer. When you license your rights, your royalty rate is lower because someone else is managing the audiobook production process.

I’m posting this list of links about rights so that more authors can get their books into audio.

Links to Help Narrators Research Rights Holders to Books

9 September 2017

Last updated 31 December 2024

I’m not a lawyer, but I have voiced an attorney in multiple audiobooks. Just because an author has passed away or isn’t easily discoverable, or the book is out of print, doesn’t mean you’re free to create the audiobook of her book!

Before you can record an audiobook, you must do due diligence to determine whether the book is in the public domain or still under copyright. When a work is still under copyright, the rights holder is the person or company that owns the audio rights to the book. The rights holder (RH) will receive the royalties from the sale of the audiobook.

If the book is still copyrighted, the RH could retain the audio rights and hire you as an independent contractor to produce the audiobook. You also could license the audio rights and become the rights holder. If you’re interested in this second option, I highly recommend you purchase my webinar with attorney and audiobook producer/director/distributor Jessica Kaye on this topic using the link on my Shop page.

The links on this page will help you understand the copyright laws in the US and UK and do your research to determine whether a book is in the public domain or find the rights holder for books still under copyright. By the way, members of my site NarratorsRoadmap.com have access to an exclusive video where I demonstrate how to use some the sites listed below. I also offer members a number of links not listed here, including some collections of potential public domain books I found on HathiTrust.org.