Before you spend a dollar
Twenty decisions come before anyone records a word.
An audiobook is a four-figure decision, and the map is written by the people selling the narration. You are asked to guess your finished-hour count, guess whether a quote is fair, and pick an exclusivity deal that can hold your title for 7 years.
Aural File does that arithmetic on your specific title, names the route, and hands you the narrator brief, the budget and the submission checklist as files you can use the same day.
We sell no narration, so our numbers have nothing to sell you.
No account, no email. The worked example below is the same maths we run on your book.
Work sheet · example title
- Word count
- 82,000
- Genre
- Thriller
- Finished hours
- 8.8
- Audible exclusive
- Undecided
- Routes compared
- 4
- Landing to finished plan
- 9 min
Six inputs. Everything else on this page is computed from them.
Figure 1 · the measuring ruleA manuscript becomes a length, a length becomes four cost bands, and a cost band becomes a dated timeline.
The worked example
A thriller of 82,000 words runs to about 9 finished hours of audio. A finished hour, or PFH, is one hour of edited and mastered audio, not one hour in the booth.
That single number sets the price of every route below, the length of the timeline, and the number of copies each route has to sell before it pays for itself.
Four routes, one 82,000-word novel
Cash out of pocket · USD
Hire a narrator
Pay for production at $150–$400 per finished hour. You keep the whole royalty and you own the files.
$1,350–$3,600
Royalty share
Nothing up front. You split royalties with the producer and the title is committed for 7 years.
$0
Self-record
Microphone, treatment and software, then 45–70 hours of your own recording and editing.
$200–$800
Digital voice
Accepted with disclosure at Spotify, Apple Books, Google Play and Kobo. Audible runs its own path.
$0–$200
Example figures for a typical 82,000-word novel at about 9 finished hours. Bands are market ranges, not a quote. Your own word count, genre and exclusivity choice move every number here. Verified 30 August 2026
Why break-even is not what the list price suggests
Royalties are paid on what the member actually paid.
- 40%
- Audible and ACX, exclusive
- 25%
- Audible and ACX, non-exclusive
- ~50%
- What a credit redemption pays against a cash sale
- 7 years
- The term a royalty-share deal holds the title
Move any one of those and the break-even unit count shifts by hundreds of copies. We show you the mechanics and the count. We never tell you what you will earn. Verified 30 August 2026
What the money is actually for
The problem, the promise, and the nine minutes
The recording is not the expensive part. The expensive part is the twenty decisions taken before it, each made once and lived with for years.
Every one of those decisions is computable from facts about your book: word count, genre, target retailers, budget ceiling, and how you feel about exclusivity. That is the whole input.
What a Production Plan hands over
- Estimated finished hours
- From your word count and your genre, not from a single generic words-per-hour figure.
- A recommended route
- One of four, with the three we rejected for your title and the reason for each.
- Cost bands and break-even
- Current market rates, and break-even units per retailer on real royalty mechanics.
- A dated timeline
- Every step with the date it falls due, from audition to submission.
- A narrator brief
- Written from your own sample scene, with an audition excerpt a candidate can read.
- A pronunciation list
- The names and invented words a narrator will get wrong in your book.
- A budget spreadsheet and a QC checklist
- The paperwork, per retailer, so the file is accepted the first time.
How it will run
- 1
Run the Reckoner
Word count, genre, one toggle. Finished hours and four costed routes appear as you type. Free, and no email.
- 2
Confirm three fields
A budget ceiling, a target publication month, and one pasted scene of 500–1,500 words.
- 3
Read the plan
The desk builds it in about 90 seconds, then closes on your first dated step.
No account. No password. The plan link is the account.
“Royalty share: rejected. At 9 finished hours you would hand over half of every sale for 7 years to save $1,800 once.”
We sell the computation, never the narration
$59 buys the plan. $3,000 buys the recording. The plan is the thing that tells you whether the $3,000 is worth spending.
We take no commission from a producer, a narrator or a retailer. Every rate, spec and royalty rule here carries the date we last checked it at source, and we re-check on a schedule.
Verified 30 August 2026
The objects, and what each one costs
- Spec Pass
- Submission specs and disclosure rules for the five retailers, dated and maintained.
- Production Plan
- The full plan and every artifact, for one title.
- Series Desk
- Up to 5 titles, sequenced by back catalogue, with the Launch Kit.
$19
$59
$129
Add-ons at $29 each: Casting Pack, Home Narration Kit, Launch Kit. One-time purchases, priced per title, no subscription. Refunds run 14 days, no questions asked.
The Reckoner opens here.
Word count in, finished hours and four costed routes out, as you type. It is free and it asks for no email. We are building it now.
Until the Reckoner is live, the worked example above is the whole method, on a typical novel.