Before Producing Your Audiobook, Make Sure You’ve Done This First!

I’ve seen this come up in varioius writing and narration groups I’m in, and also have read horror stories of authors finding out someone else out there had stolen their work or put up obstacles regarding the copyright claims of a book on ACX but earlier I found out about it directly affecting an author I’ve narrated for.

The latest audiobook I’ve performed for Praying Medic, Traveling in the Spirit Made Simple was held up by ACX for months because, as they told him, someone ELSE claimed ownership of it on ACX already. As a result, this is prevented him from creating a project and allowing us to upload all the mp3 files that we’ve completed.

You see he had originally published this title on Amazon in 2016, but only this year decided to move forward with the book in audio format.

At first, he heard from someone that there were large portions of it that were excerpts of other people’s, like from Michael van Vlymen’s book on the subject. But then after talking to someone else, and getting to the bottom of things, the hold up was ACX was trying to tell him it wasn’t “his” intelectual property.

He had to provide evidence to ACX he’s the truly the copyright holder.

Even if you don’t plan on or don’t want to create audioboks of your works on ACX to be released on Amazon, Audible and iTunes, it’s STILL a good idea to in there and “claim” all your titles so that nobody else can instead! Who knows how long ago someone had claimed his book, perhaps by accident or perhaps for nefarious reasons — who knows?

You can find the following instructions I’m pasting on ACX’s site here;

1. Log into your account or create a new account by clicking Sign Up Now .
2. Select +Add Your Title at the top right corner.
3. Search for your book. You can search by title, author, ASIN, or ISBN.
4. When you locate your book, click This Is My Book.
5. In the window that opens, select I am looking for someone to narrate and produce my audiobook.
6. Review and accept the Book Posting Agreement.
7. Fill out the title profile and distribution information. There are three pages to this step.
8. Click Post to ACX to open the title for audition.

Note: Your book must be available in the Amazon.com book store in print or Kindle edition to be added.

Note that you will likely have to sign the agreement before you can claim the title.

You’re welcome.