Other resources on this topic:

Public Domain

DUE DILIGENCE

Before you start to record a book, sure to research your title’s copyright as I discussed in the video to be sure it’s in the public domain. The link goes to my article with updated information and links to sites.

Important Note: When you decide to produce a public domain work, keep your intentions to yourself if you don’t want others to use your idea and publish their edition ahead of you. For instance, if you plan to distribute through Spoken Realms, I would not enter the book in the Project Tracker until I was ready to release it. Everyone who has access to the Project Tracker can see all of the titles others are producing. I also wouldn’t announce the book on social media. Remember, the public domain belongs to ALL of us, and anyone is free to record a PD book. Why share your find with others before you’ve published it?

One Last Thing: I would decide how I plan to distribute the book BEFORE I record the whole thing. Review the Publishing resources below, particularly the bullets for my Audiobook Distributors Comparison Chart and my Kindle pairing request.

• I created my Public Domain Narration Headquarters on my blog. It lists 10 reasons I love to do PD books and links to numerous resources including this course and my articles and Clubhouse chat listed below. I added more resources beyond those listed in the sub-bullets here and used the comments section of that article for Q&A that different from those that follow the resource links below.
  • June 2022 Clubhouse chat about PD books
  • My article Copyrighted Images in a Public Domain Book can help you determine whether you can utilize the images in your book as cover art and/or in a supplemental PDF to the audiobook.
  • I curated a Tour of Sites With Public Domain Art that can be used on your audiobook cover.
  • A picture of a person can be in the public domain, meaning free of copyright, but still protected. Be sure to read my article Right of Publicity to ensure you can safely use an image of a person on your cover or in your supplemental PDF.
• Linda Aragoni reviewed the top 10 bestsellers for each year in the 20th century in her GreatPenformances blog. However, she took her site off-line. You still can access her reviews on Archive.org. Copy the URL below to your browser and change the year to the one that contains your book. Once the page appears, scroll through the reviews to see if one for your book exists. https://web.archive.org/web/20211201090301/https://greatpenformances.wordpress.com/category/bestsellers-by-year/1900-bestselling-novels/
• Archive.org
• CamScanner app
• Epson ES-500W Scanner on Amazon
• Goodreads Listopia Lists by year or decade (not shown in video)
• Goodreads Most Popular Books Published In (Year) lists (shown in video)
• HathiTrust.org
  • As I search through HathiTrust.org, I save books that may make good audiobooks into the collection folders below. In the Subjects/Genres and Authors collections, HathiTrust believes the books are in the PD, but you’d want to do due diligence by researching the 3 sites I showed in the video to confirm the book is not still copyrighted. You might find your next project here…and if you do, let me know! The instructions for downloading a book are here.
    • Years  Every book in the yearly collections is PD in the United States. All books published in the US in 1929 enter the PD on 1/1/25, so it’s not too soon to find one, produce the audiobook, and be ready to publish at year-end!
      • 1925 Books The books in this collection entered the public domain on 1 January 2021.
      • 1926 Books The books in this collection entered the public domain on 1 January 2022.
      • 1927 Books The books in this collection entered the public domain on 1 January 2023.
      • 1928 Books The books in this collection entered the public domain on 1 January 2024.
    • Subjects/Genres
      • Baseball
      • Biographies/Memoirs
      • Children’s Books
      • Diaries and Letters
      • Fiction
      • History and Crime
      • Pirates
      • Plays
    • Authors
      • Anatole France
      • J. M. Barrie
      • James Branch Cabell
      • Wilkie Collins
      • Will Rogers
      • Theodore Roosevelt
      • Booth Tarkington
      • H. G. Wells
      • P. G. Wodehouse
• LibriVox.org
• Project Gutenberg
• PublicDomainReview.org has curated collections, as well as this useful page with sites and explanations about the rights under Creative Commons. You may also want to subscribe to their newsletter.
• PublicDomainSherpa.com article Where to find public domain books lists sites and what to expect there.
• US federal government
  • Government Printing Office (GPO) — Search for works published by the federal government
  • USA.gov connects you to all federal agencies and info; for instance, you can see links to all federal government web sites.

Questions and Answers:

I want to point out that a text can be in the public domain, but a translation of that text may still be copyrighted. If you’re looking at a translated edition, you’d need to research the translator and their copyright. For instance, if a Big 5 publisher creates a harcover/paperback/digital book from a translation of a text in the PD, they or the translator could have a copyright on the text in that edition.

If I were to ask to pair my audiobook with an existing RH’s Amazon edition [to distribute through ACX or Findaway, which uses ACX to distribute to Audible and Amazon]:

1) Would I need to narrate word for word their derivative edition?

No. You don’t need to use their edition or worry about your narration exactly matching their text.

Per this ACX blog article, you must have a 97% match between the Amazon text and the audiobook to be eligible for WhisperSync. In a book with 100,000 words, your audiobook could vary by 3000 words and still sync.

2) Would that RH get a portion of my royalties?

No. You are only getting their permission to utilize the audio rights associated with their edition. Once they say yes, you won’t interact with them again.

Remember, ACX is owned by Audible, which owned by Amazon. Everything on ACX is part of Amazon’s ecosystem. You can’t publish an audiobook on ACX without first claiming an Amazon edition. You don’t need to have an Amazon edition if you use a different distributor like Spoken Realms.

3)  Would I be responsible for creating a supplemental PDF of images and figures from the text, or does reference to the Kindle edition suffice?

Yes to the first question, and no to the second. If the images and figures in the text are necessary for the listeners’ comprehension, you would need to create the supplemental PDF. You can’t refer to the Kindle edition because you can’t assume the listener will buy or access it or any other printed edition in addition to the audiobook. You’ll find instructions for making the PDF below in the Publishing Resources section.

What should I do if no publisher’s name is listed?

Sometimes the publisher name isn’t shown in the Amazon Product Details, or it may be generic, like “CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform”. Be sure to check the Amazon Look Inside feature as it might reveal an email address and/or publisher name in the opening pages.

If your efforts to unearth the publisher are in vain or emails sent to a publisher go unanswered, you can always publish your audiobook using another distributor. Remember, only Amazon and Findaway have the requirement for a Kindle edition. Audiobooks Unleashed, Big Happy Family Audio, and Spoken Realms are 3 distributors that don’t have this requirement.

When looking to match your PD audiobook with an existing format, is it best to try to pair it with the most best selling listing version to increase its visibility?

Not necessarily. If you see multiple editions on the same Amazon page, the audiobook should appear as another edition for that book. Anyone who goes to that listing should be able to see that an audiobook is available.

The best-selling print edition could be the one attracting more page visitors in the first place, or it could be the cheapest edition.

Prospecting

• Amazon
  • Also Boughts explained — Basically, authors are obsessed with the Also Bought section. If they can get their book in the first few pages of this area, it helps their sales. They want to align their book with the top one in their category. Note that “Products Related to” the item are sponsored ads.
  • Wish Lists
• Booklist.com
• Newsletters:
  • Author newsletters from their sites — If they consistently use the same narrator for their audiobooks, you do not want to poach them.
  • BookBub.com
  • BookGorilla.com
  • TheFussyLibrarian.com
  • BookPerk
  • BookSends.com
• Library Journal
  • Newsletters
  • Book Lists
  • IndieAuthorDay.com
• Publishers Marketplace
  • Publishers Lunch free daily newsletter
  • Paid Subscription gives you option for a daily deal report. You can track deal news and proactively contact casting people who are producing the book.
• Publishers Weekly
  • booklife
  • PW Select
• Smashwords
• NarratorsRoadmap Event Calendar — In addition to attending and possibly presenting at the event, note that event websites are a hub for the community. Even if you don’t attend, you’ll find lists of participating authors and publishers for further research. You can also join any Facebook or other online communities, as well as sign up for the event’s newsletter.
• You may find this report about popular genres created by GetSleuthy to be useful in your prospecting efforts. GetSleuthy.com is a paid service created by narrator Hannibal Hills that searches Amazon for titles without an audio edition.
• My articles referenced in the video:
  • A DEAL You Can Get Any Day And Is Good All Year
  • Links to Help Authors Know Their Rights (with resources on rights reversion)
  • Cure For The ACX 7-Year-Itch
• An article not referenced in the video (be sure to read the comments)
  • Authors, Can You Afford to Produce an Audiobook?
• My articles Links to Help Narrators Research Rights Holders to Books and When The Author is 6 Feet Under can help you locate the rights holder.
• Narrator Hannibal Hills has written this article which explains many tactics for finding an author’s contact info.
• My author prospecting email template
• Get Clients Now! is the best book I’ve found about creating a workable and repeatable marketing plan to increase your client list.
• If you need a contract template, you can download one from ACX on this page. You can modify the Narration Services contract template to suit your circumstances, starting with removing “ACX” from its pages.

Publishing

• In my Audiobook Distributors Chart, I compare 6 popular distributors (including the 3 below) across 22 individual criteria to help you make better-informed decisions about your distributor(s). It also includes at least 1 resource link that isn’t listed here.
• You may want to use my audiobook-pairing-with-Kindle request email template. Note that you can ask permission to pair with ANY Amazon edition, including hardback and paperback.
  • I have a relationship with a Kindle RH who may be willing to allow my referred narrators to pair with his existing Kindle editions or create new Kindle editions of public domain books for members. If you find a book in one of my HathiTrust public domain collections that you want to record, let me know the following info by email before you start production. I’ll coordinate with the rights holder and let you know the answer.
    • Title Name
    • HathiTrust Link
    • Sites searched for copyright renewals to determine public domain status
    • Availability of any existing Amazon Kindle edition
• ACX.com
• ACX Book Posting Agreement has the info about changing from exclusive to non-exclusive distribution after 1 year.
• FindawayVoices.com  As I noted on my Audiobook Distributors Chart, IF YOU DECIDE TO USE FINDAWAY, be sure to revoke their clause that licenses your audio to Apple for machine learning. This article has the details and instructions.
• SpokenRealms.com
• Steven Cohen created this Q&A document that goes through a number of considerations of using ACX, Findaway Voices, or Spoken Realms.
• ALLI’s The Ultimate Guide to Self-Publishing Audiobooks includes some excellent info about popular genres, distributors, and royalty rates. Be aware that the vendor Soundwise contributed to the article and may have introduced bias in the discussion about distributors. Also, they didn’t add the comments from the linked deep dive of Audible titles concerning the high degree of reviews for romance books.
• Tips for creating a Kindle ebook are included in my article How I Started My Audiobook Publishing Company
• This site has instructions for creating a companion PDF for your audiobook. The ACX Help Section includes these instructions for adding the PDF to your audiobook. If you’re using a different distributor, ask them for instructions.
• My Audiobook Marketing Cheat Sheet has a wide range of ideas and tactics to help you promote your audiobook.

Licensing Audio Rights

• Webinar with Jessica Kaye

 

Related

• How to Narrate Copyrighted Books  Overview of the process of finding and contacting a RH to license rights or persuade them to hire you.