Free guide for audiobook narrators
You've recorded your audiobook. Now let's make sure it actually gets accepted.
ACX rejects roughly 1 in 3 first submissions — not because of the performance, but because of technical settings most narrators have never heard of. RMS loudness. Noise floor. CBR vs. VBR. Sample rate. Get any one wrong and your file is rejected before a human ever listens.
Free guide
Record It Right
The first-time narrator's guide to recording and submitting audiobooks that pass technical review
Free downloadWhat's inside
- The full ACX spec — all 8 technical requirements explained in plain English
- How to set up a recording space that actually works — without building a studio
- Mic recommendations at every budget — what to buy, what to skip
- Recording best practices that save you hours of re-takes
- The exact mistakes that cause most rejections — and how to avoid every one
- A step-by-step self-QC checklist to run before you submit
- A printable ACX spec reference card and pre-submission checklist
The same technical spec that passes ACX also qualifies your file for Findaway, Google Play, Kobo, and Apple Books. Get it right once — publish everywhere.
Written by Chris Murphy— an audio post-production engineer who has spent years quality-checking recordings for publishers including Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Disney, and Scholastic. He has delivered broadcast-ready files across hundreds of multi-chapter audiobook projects, and knows exactly what causes rejections before they happen.
Here's the reality: you can spend weeks recording, then upload to ACX and hope for the best — or spend 20 minutes with this guide, know exactly what to check, and submit with confidence.
It's free. Your email is all it takes.
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