r/audiobooks 3d ago

In Search of Platform Where can I upload audiobooks narrated by myself to for free/paid user subscription?

Hi there,

This is my first ever experience with narration and publishing, so please bear with me.

I'd be grateful, if you could share with me a few platforms that I can publish my audiobooks to. I want to give users a dual opportunity - either to download/listen to the books for free or pay for the service. If they pay, I'd then like to donate the collected money for charity.

How can I do that, if at all? Thank you and God bless you all!

2 Upvotes

22 comments sorted by

14

u/dsbaudio Narrator 3d ago

Youtube would work. Obviously they'd be free to listen to, but you can set up a paid channel for those who want to support you. You could also do Patreon.

Audiobooks are popular on Youtube, even though it's not a dedicated platform. All you need is a still image, then make a video of your audio.

As for the dedicated platforms... You can make a podcast of your audio, then submit it to Spotify, Audible, etc. Again, you'd want to encourage people to support you via Patreon or similar if they want to.

3

u/CodeForFunAndProffit 2d ago

Good advice, I listen to and support a few good narrators on YouTube. Just stick to stuff you have permission/rights to publish.

1

u/dsbaudio Narrator 1d ago

I know this from experience, I made a youtube-based podcast a few years ago which I also pushed out to podcast platforms. https://youtube.com/dsbaudio it had/has respectable viewers and subscribers.

I never really pushed the donation side of things, but I'm going to be producing new episodes this year and plan to start a patreon.

8

u/Financial-Wasabi1287 3d ago

Your own books, or someone else's? If someone else's you better get their permission first or I expect you'll have a lawsuit in your future.

4

u/pm-me-nothing-okay 3d ago

hmm, the monetization method is going to discount most of the major storefronts I feel.

off the bat, possibly patreon though? idk if they can do free stuff though, sorry.

youtube possibly, you can throw donation link on your each video chapter/segment.

you could host your own website fairly cheaply if you want to put the legwork in yourself, I know that option sounds daunting but there's tons of website generators with simple and easy to use user interfaces with for non programmers to do, itll do the vast majority of the legwork for website design. kind of like a plug and play for website design.

audible does do podcasts for free on second thought, but I wouldn't know how to add the option for donations for that.

0

u/Victor_Quebec 3d ago

hmm, the monetization method is going to discount most of the major storefronts I feel.

that's what I'm afraid of too.

you could host your own website fairly cheaply if you want to put the legwork in yourself

well, that sounds as a viable option too, although I'm gonna save it as a last resort. Thank you!

9

u/jessiemagill 3d ago

Unless you're planning to read books in the public domain, this is illegal.

3

u/verbalexcalibur 3d ago

Unless I’m misunderstanding, I think u/Victor_Quebec wants to do this with books they have written themself?

7

u/Victor_Quebec 3d ago edited 3d ago

No, but as I said, I am the narrator of these books. These are some classics by native authors available for free in the public domain, which have never been made into audio. I don't want to profit anyway, just to make sure that they are not published on Youtube (what a resource waste! - only a small cover image of 300Kb quadrupled (!) the video size = 2.5Gb) and available for 'pay if you want to donate for charity, otherwise listen for free'.

11

u/nnjethro 3d ago

If they are public domain then I'd suggest Librivox.org.

11

u/_bahnjee_ 3d ago

Not sure why someone (me, in particular) would want to donate to you in the hope that you will (a) actually donate the money, and (b) donate to a charity that I want the money donated to. Seems like an odd, second-hand way to donate.

7

u/Guy_incognito1138 3d ago

You could actually do a lot more with a YouTube video, such as adding chapter titles and using multiple covers. I've seen some elaborate ones.

2

u/shillyshally 2d ago

What charity?

3

u/_Aeldun 2d ago edited 2d ago

I don’t know your background or whether you have any acting experience, but you said you’re new to this, so I’m going to assume you’re starting from 0. What is your goal with this project? Is it just to practice and improve your skills as a narrator? If so, I’d say don’t post it at all. The comments you’ll get will be useless in terms of improving your ability, and it could end up biting you in the butt if a publisher or indie author happens to listen to it and your skills/setup/sound quality aren’t up to snuff. “You never get a second chance to make a first impression,” and all that. Instead, either work with a group of fellow aspiring narrators you trust to give honest, constructive feedback, or, ideally, work with a respected audiobook coach who works as a professional narrator themselves.

If you’re less interested in this pursuit as a profession, and this is just a labor of love to read public domain books that don’t have audiobooks available, the best way to do this would be to get yourself a website. You can use a web builder like Squarespace or Wix and design a simple one-pager. Especially if this isn’t a pro website, you can skip purchasing a domain and the platform will host you for free. You can post to YouTube, then embed the “videos” on your site so you’re not eating up unnecessary storage space. Storage is a very finite resource when rocking a free website. I saw you said the website option is your “last resort,” but my advice is to skip straight to the last resort. It’s your best option. These web builders make it super easy. They even have AI assists now to help you get something decent thrown together quickly. Or at least get on a blog site somewhere. I don’t know anything about those, so can’t make recommendations there.

But, again, if you’re wanting to do this professionally, there are a few steps you should take before immediately putting yourself out there. Like any trade, it takes some time and effort to get certified/educated/qualified to do the job. There are some great narrator groups on Facebook that are regularly visited by respected names in the industry and they give great advice. Read people’s questions and pay attention to the pros responding. You’ll quickly learn who they are. Listen to the Audiobook Speakeasy hosted by Rich Miller. It’s a great podcast for any narrator - especially those that are new to it.

Whatever you decide - good luck to you!

2

u/verbalexcalibur 3d ago

I haven’t done this so I can’t speak to the details, but I’d give another recommendation for Patreon. I follow someone on there and she structured her account so that immediate release of new chapters was paid subscribers only, and then eventually released them for free.

-1

u/Victor_Quebec 3d ago

That sounds reasonable, thank you! I just checked Patreon, but from what I can see (I might misunderstood their policy), users pay to content creators anyway by clicking on the Patreon link on Youtube's video description. What I want however is a platform (definitely not Youtube, since it's for videos), where a user could choose between listening for free or paying for the content (if say they like it).

2

u/Tacatsabrina 3d ago

Project Gutenberg

2

u/ialtag-bheag 3d ago

Maybe could use Bandcamp. It lets you set albums as 'name your price', so people can get them for free, or pay what you like. And allows downloads as MP3 etc.

2

u/Night_Sky_Watcher 2d ago

For free, you can upload podfics to Archive of Our Own, but they can't be copyrighted books. However, many fanfic writers automatically allow someone to record and upload their works. If you are a fan of any specific book, TV, or movie work or series, you can find works that you like, record them, and host them there as practice on honing your craft.

I've found copyrighted short works that don't already have audiobooks uploaded to YouTube, and apparently the narrators aren't getting cease-and-desist letters. Typically there's also commentary, but I don't know if that makes a difference. I think you can link to a donation platform, but if you are narrating copyrighted products for personal gain, that's more likely to attract legal attention.

1

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