If you’re an author thinking about recording your own audiobook, you may want to look into using Hindenburg Narrator. I’ve had success recording, editing, and getting my audiobook approved on Amazon’s ACX, so I wanted to share a bit about how I did it to, hopefully, make it easier for you. This is Part IV in a blog series where I’ll discuss exporting and uploading the audio files to ACX. If you haven’t yet, please check out Part I (choosing tools & setting up your studio), Part II (recording your audiobook), and Part III (editing your audiobook).
Exporting Your Audiobook from Hindenburg Narrator
Hindenburg allows you to export specifically for ACX and separately for Findaway Voices (Spotify and around 25 other platforms). I found a couple of issues with the exports, so let me talk you through how I handled mine. Once you’re done recording your book, do the following.
- Save a copy of your book off in Hindenburg Narrator so that you have a clean version to work with if you decide to go back and re-record or edit anything. This is really important. Hindenburg adds some noise to the beginning of each file after you run an export that I didn’t like, so avoid that by saving a clean copy.
- Do the Export->Export to ACX… action.
- Hindenburg will automatically run a check on your book at this point. It will make sure the levels are normalized across the whole book, check for gaps in your recording that Amazon won’t like, and fix pauses. If there are any issues, an error message will pop up before your book exports.
Hindenburg automatically creates one mp3 file per chapter. Recall that setting up your script is important because Hindenburg assumes that any section you start with H1 Heading text will be the start of a new mp3 file. For more information on setting up your script, visit my first article here. You should record the whole book in one file so that all of the audio matches and gets auto-corrected together. Then, Hindenburg will automatically make mp3 files for each of your chapters, the introduction, and so on. This is quite a nice feature.
Make Sure You Have Enough Lead-Time For All Files
If you run into errors during the export, I put quite a bit of information on common export error messages in my second article here. One thing that you absolutely need to be sure you include is five full seconds of silence at the beginning and end of every individual mp3 file. ACX requires this and my first upload to ACX failed because I didn’t have enough silence.
What I did was export my files as-is and then I used Audacity to insert the extra silence I needed.
Why?
Because, as I alluded to above, Hindenburg Narrator added some noise to the beginning of most of my files. It was a weird static sound for a few seconds that drove me nuts. I asked their support team about it and they weren’t sure why the noise appeared. Basically what it did was create more noise in the files. I ended up needing to cut that static and add my own silence, which I copy/pasted from areas of my recording that had some decent pauses.
Create a Sample Audio File
You’ll also need to upload a sample audio file that is five minutes or less. This will appear on your Amazon sales page and readers can listen to it to help them determine whether they’d like to buy your book. Ideally, you upload the first five minutes of your book (minus the opening credits), get them interested, and then when they buy the book they can just continue from there. However, you do not need to use the beginning of your book, you can make your sample whatever you want.
I created my sample audio file in Audacity. It was very easy to upload the mp3 file I got from Hindenburg, then cut it down to four and a half minutes in Audacity.
Uploading Your Audiobook to ACX
And now, we get to the fun part! Here’s how you upload your newly-created audiobook to ACX.
- If you haven’t already, create an ACX account and add your payment details so you’ll be able to get your royalties.
- Under My Projects, search for the title of your book, then claim it as yours.
- ACX will ask you for some information, which is pretty straightforward to input. Make sure you upload an audiobook version of your cover. If you don’t have one, you can request one from your print book cover creator, or create one on your own. I used a service called GetCovers and any time I need an update, they get it to me in days. They knew exactly the size and format needed to create my audiobook cover, so I had that in my hands within 24 hours.
- The most important piece of metadata is how you’ll distribute your book (and therefore how much you’ll retain in royalties). Currently, ACX has two options. If you’re willing to distribute your audiobook exclusively on ACX, you can choose the 40% royalty option. You’ll get 40% of the price and Amazon gets 60%. However, if you want to distribute your book anywhere else (like, Spotify or YouTube), you need to take the non-exclusive option, which only nets you 20%. That’s the route I went for a couple of reasons. Findaway Voices pays 80% for royalties and Spotify is a service a lot of my students use, so they can listen to my book for free with their premium account. I also just plain want to stop routing tons of money to Amazon. They don’t need it. Many indie authors start exclusively with ACX and then after 90 days move to non-exclusive.
- Finally, on the next screen, you’ll upload your audio files. There are slots for Opening Credits, Chapters, Closing Credits, and an Audio Sample. Rename your files to be exactly what you want the readers to see when they read your book, then upload your chapter files in the exact order they appear in your book.
- On the next page, ACX will have you double-check that your file names appear exactly as you want them.
Once you’ve done that, you’re ready to publish your audiobook, so hit publish!! Note: Unlike print books, you don’t choose how much your audiobook sells for. ACX takes care of that based on length and some other factors.
ACX Review & Wait Times
Once you hit publish, your book has to go through a fairly thorough review process. The ACX team is making sure that your book sounds good and meets all technical specs. They claim the review will take up to 10 business days.
The first time I uploaded my book, I heard back in two business days. They let me know that I needed more silence at the beginning and end of my files. The email I got was very clear and helpful. So, I edited my files and submitted it again.
This time, it took ACX the full 10 business days to get back to me and let me know that was book was approved! Once that happened, it was immediately put up for sale.
Adding an Audiobook Companion PDF
If you have charts or pictures that you want your audio listeners to have access to, you can create a companion PDF. Simply collate the pictures into a word document and export to PDF. Then, you have to compress the file and send it to ACX’s support team manually, asking them to add the companion PDF.
It’s been two weeks since I sent them an email to add mine and IT’S STILL NOT ADDED. I have been checking in with them every week. So, just be aware that this process is slow. I have no idea why it’s so hard to upload a file, but it appears to be harder to do that than to review an entire audiobook.
That’s about it! I’ll write one more article about how to upload to Findaway Voices. I hope you’ve found this series helpful and good luck getting your audiobook out into the world!