📱 Best Platforms
ACX (Amazon's audiobook marketplace connecting narrators directly with authors and publishers), Findaway Voices (alternative platform for audiobook narration with different royalty structures), Fiverr (audiobook narration category for shorter works and indie authors).
📖 The Hustle
Independent authors publishing on Amazon KDP need audiobook versions but cannot afford $1,000+ professional narrators. You narrate their 3-8 hour book, chapter by chapter, with consistent tone and character voices (if fiction). ACX lets you negotiate royalty-share deals (50/50) or per-finished-hour rates ($50-100 PFH for beginners). One book can earn royalties for years.
🚀 First Step
Pick a public domain book from Project Gutenberg, record chapter 1 in Audacity, edit it clean, and use it as your ACX audition sample.
🔑 Keys to Success
- Record in 20-minute sessions max — your voice fatigues faster than you think, and listeners can hear vocal tiredness.
- Mark editing notes as you record (clap or say 'pickup') to make finding mistakes easier when editing later.
- Start with royalty-share deals on short books (under 3 hours) to build your ACX catalogue and reviews before charging per-finished-hour.
🛠 Tools & Resources: Audacity, ACX, USB microphone, Audacity ACX Check plugin, Punch and Roll