ACX also ran a few promotions on behalf of “ What Doesn’t Kill Us” that made it the number one book on the planet for two days.

Not only that, but I got to read the audiobook myself. It’s given me real access to publishing profits, a steady income and allows me to reach an audience who print doesn’t appeal to.

That’s pretty good money.Overall I’ve been ecstatic about my experience with ACX.com. The way it worked was that for every customer who downloaded my book first on Audible, and then maintained their subscription for 61 days, they would give me $50.Over the last year and a half I’ve earned 533 bounties for a total of $26,650. Bounties are essentially a reward for bringing new customers into Audible and they are a big part to why Audible has been able to corner the audiobook market. It hasn’t made me rich, but audiobooks account for about 50% of what I make today.Not only that, but ACX had an offer that sweetened the deal. ACX sends me checks every month, not every quarter, or every six months like most publishers do. The advantage of self-publishing was that I would earn a lot better royalty rate–40% where most mainstream publishing contracts are 12.5%.

I listed the book through ACX.com, a subdivision of that caters to self-published authors. It turned out to be one of the smartest decisions that I ever made.

When What Doesn’t Kill Us came out I made a sort of radical decision to skip the mainstream audio publishers to record and self-produce my own audiobook. And, unfortunately, in the last week some changes in the marketplace make it seem that some of the potential profits are going to get sucked away. I’m going to have to get into the weeds about audiobooks for a moment because they’re one of the most important tools that a writer has to make a steady living.

Acx audio books