Audiobooks

Audiobooks are a rapidly growing part of the publishing world. Since 2012, audiobooks have experienced double digit growth per year in sales. Audiobooks are a great way to reach an audience that is inaccessible with print and ebooks.

These are the commuter listeners, the stay-at-home moms listening while washing dishes and running errands, and the CEOs who listen while taking their morning run. Cedar Fort partners with audiobook creators to make it more accessible and affordable for you. An audiobook introduces your content to a whole new audience that it could not have reached before. However, an audiobook cannot revive a struggling book, but it is a great companion to a new release or thriving book. 

"Thriving" is the operative word here. Not all books should be audiobooks, or some shouldn't be an audiobook right away. You can discuss whether or not your book would be a good fit for an audiobook with our audiobook producer, Emily, by emailing her at eclark@cedarfort.com. 

But you'll want to look at the cost of an audiobook below first.  

• As of 4/30/2020 the prices are as follows:
• Self Recording: $300 for under 80k words. $100 for every 10k after 80k. this money is for our sound engineer to edit the audiobooks sound quality and ensure it meets publishing standards. All royalties we get on the book once published will be paid back to you to cover that $300 plus an extra $50. After you've been paid back $350, pricing will return to what's in your contract. 
• Hired voice actor: approximately $700 for under 80k words. $200 for every 10k after 80k, this price is just and estimate as it depends on the rate of the narrator that you choose. Narrators can cost between $100 to $1000 per finished hour of audio. If your book is about 30k words you are looking at about 3.5 hours of finished audio. We strive to hire narrators at about $100-$200 per finished hour--but there are other narrators at higher price ranges you may like more.   

Also keep in mind that if you decided to do an audiobook, you'll need to promptly meet your schedule with your editors, cover designers, and the audiobook production team, in order to keep your spot in the line up. A missed date could get your audiobook pushed back by a few weeks, or possibly months, depending on our queue. (Which is totally fine! It just means you'll have a second release date to market your book later.) 

If you have any other questions, feel free to contact Emily at eclark@cedarfort.com. 

If this sounds like something you want to do, you'll need to contact our audiobook production team when your book is getting close to release.