Video Courses

Welcome to the exclusive video courses developed for NarratorsRoadmap.com members!

Videos about becoming a narrator are on the Home page.

The Videos page links to more videos about the business of narration, performance, and production.

Public Domain

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 used the comments section of that article for Q&A different from those that follow the resource links below.
- June 2022 Clubhouse chat about PD books
- My article Links to Help Narrators Research Rights Holders to 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.
Public Domain Sherpa article Where to find public domain books
Goodreads Most Popular Books Published In (Year) lists (shown in video)
Goodreads Listopia Lists by year or decade (not shown in video)
Great Penformances blog
LibriVox.org
Project Gutenberg
Archive.org
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.
HathiTrust.org
- Secretly Public Domain bot churns through the HathiTrust collection and may reveal a gem or at least some inspiration.
- As I search through HathiTrust.org, I sort books that may make good audiobooks into the collection folders below. HathiTrust believes they 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!
  - 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.
  - Baseball
  - Biographies/Memoirs
  - Diaries and Letters
  - Fiction
  - History and Crime
  - H. G. Wells
  - J. M. Barrie
  - James Branch Cabell
  - Theodore Roosevelt
  - Will Rogers
Epson ES-500W Scanner on Amazon
CamScanner app

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 Wish Lists
Newsletters:
Library Journal
Publishers Weekly
- booklife
- PW Select
NarratorsRoadmap Event Calendar
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 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.
ACX.com
ACX Book Posting Agreement has the info about changing from exclusive to non-exclusive distribution after 1 year.
FindawayVoices.com
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-pairing-with-Kindle request email template
My Audiobook Marketing Cheat Sheet has a wide range of ideas and tactics to help you promote your audiobook.