I can produce an audiobook myself, but will any of the audiobook companies agree to distribute it, or must it be produced "in-house"?
Guest post by Maggie Lynch
If your audiobook is being produced by an audio publisher, they have their own distribution sources.
If you are doing the audiobook yourself or hiring a narrator and you will get the physical files to distribute, I would recommend Findaway Voices. They have the largest audio distribution market. The larger company, Findaway, merged with Spotify in 2022 so their distribution is even stronger and they are trying new marketing options to capitalize on that relationship.
Another good audio distribution service is Author's Republic. They have a great reputation for clear communication and monthly royalty payments and they distribute to about 50 places. Every author I know who uses them loves them.
Publish Drive, Lantern Audio (used to be Listen Up), and BookBaby also have good reputations, distribute books to the big guys, and then use Findaway to reach the rest of the places. My thought is, why not just go with Findaway to begin with.
You can load directly to the big places like Amazon (Audible), Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and Apple, but I personally find that too time- consuming, and if you want to make changes in metadata—cover, pricing, description, etc.—it's a lot of places to go to. I'd rather have a book in one place with wide distribution so I can make changes at any time and know it will populate to all the distributors they cover.
You can learn more about Maggie Lynch here.