Voices by INAudio Audiobooks (Findaway Voices by Spotify) for Authors
On August 1, 2025, Findaway Voices by Spotify becomes Voices by INAudio.
As of May 1, 2025, distribution to Spotify is no longer included.
Below is the independent author’s guide to Voices by INAudio.
What is Voices by INAudio and how does it work?
Voices by INAudio is the world’s largest audiobook distribution network, a platform that helps audiobook publishers and independent authors reach roughly three dozen different retailers, library systems, education channels, and subscription services.
Using Voices by INAudio, authors can reach listeners on Audible, Apple Books, Google Play Books, Books-a-Million, ThreeLeaf Group, 24 Symbols, Any Play, Audiobooks Now, audiobooks.com, Baker & Taylor, TuneIn, Beek, Bibliotheca, Bookmate, Chirp, Click Digital, Downpour, Fullet, Hoopla, InstaRead, Kobo, Libro.fm, MLOL, My Audiobook Library, Next Story, Nook, Odilo, OverDrive, Radish, Everand, Storytel, UBook, Overscroft, and Wheeler’s Book Club, Ltd.
Voices by INAudio offers an 80%/20% revenue split; the author gets 80% of net profits. More details later.
Voices by INAudio and Spotify
Voices by INAudio does not offer distribution to Spotify.
Publishing an audiobook to Spotify can be done through Spotify for Authors and requires a Spotify account.
On May 1, 2025, Spotify for Authors became available to all independent authors who had previously used Findaway Voices by Spotify for audiobook distribution. It then opened on August 1, 2025, to all independent authors who hadn’t previously used Findaway Voices by Spotify for audiobook distribution.
Who is eligible to publish an audiobook with Voices by INAudio?
Authors in all countries who are over age 18.
Note that in order to publish an audiobook on Amazon, you must also have an ebook format for sale on Amazon.
How much does it cost to publish an audiobook on INAudio?
There is no setup fee or distribution fee to open an account, upload your audiobook, and distribute it using Voices by INAudio.
Royalties: How much do you get paid by Voices by INAudio?
“As the author, you keep 80% of all royalties.”
There are a number of ways that your books are sold or distributed, and each one has different payment models:
1) A la carte (per copy): “a customer purchases a license to the title in a traditional a-la-carte purchase environment. In the Library Channel, a school or library purchases a license to the title that may be circulated to one (1) patron at a time.”
2) Combined portions: “Combined Portions Model (CPM) pays publishers off of SRP after 5 portions of a title have been consumed by subscription end users. A “portion” equals one-fifth of an Audiobook Title. A unit purchase will be recorded for every 5 portions consumed of an Audiobook title, across any number of Users.”
3) Pool subscription: “Customers pay a flat monthly price to access a subscription service which contributes to a shared revenue pool. Royalties paid based on Publisher’s pro-rata share of total audiobook listening for each monthly period. There is no set “rate” and payouts in this model will likely vary from month-to-month based on the size of the overall pool and the amount of listening attributed to your audiobook(s).”
4) Cost-per-checkout: “For Audiobook sales that permit Library patrons to borrow access to a digital audiobook for a specific period of time. . . . Allows for unlimited circulation of licensed copies with access being limited to one (1) patron per borrowed copy.”
5) Unlimited subscription: “Customers pay a flat monthly price to subscription service for unlimited access to audiobooks. A sale occurs each time a subscriber consumes 15% or more of the audiobook.”
6) Credit-based subscriptions: “Customers pay a flat monthly price to the subscription service for credits allocating them a fixed number of audiobooks per month. A sale occurs each time a customer uses a credit to access an audiobook.”
Royalties “are within the following ranges:
A la carte: 40% to 50% of list price
Subscription: 30% to 40% of list price
Revenue Share: 25% to 45% of revenue receipts
Voices by INAudio shares a “full list of partners, channels, and royalty rates” inside your account. You can review the list and select and deselect the partners you wish to publish to. You’ll be notified (and receive links) each time a retailer reached through Voices has made your book available for sale.
Voices by INAudio Royalties: Examples
Let’s look at some specific examples:
Retail a la carte sales
24 Symbols, 3Leaf Group, Apple Books, Baja Libros, Bokus Play, Books-a-Million, Chirp, eStories, Hummingbird, Instaread, Kobo, Libro.FM, My Audibook Library, Radish: 80% of 45%
Audiobooks.com, AudibooksNow, Barnes & Noble, Binge Books, Google Play: 80% of 50%
Subscription sales
Cliq Digital, Leamos (unlimited subscription): 80% of 32%
24Symbols, Barnes & Noble, eStories, Cliq Digital, Kobo, Libro.FM, My Audiobook Library (credit-based subscription): 80% of 32%
Audiobooks.com (credit-based subscription): 80% of 40%
Bookmate, Nextory (combined portions subscription): 80% of 32%
Revenue share sales
Anyplay, Beek, Kobo, Milkbox, Radish, Scribd, Spotify Premium, Storytel (subscription-based revenue pool): royalties vary from month-to-month.
Authors Direct (transactional revenue share): 80% of 70%
Downpour (a la carte transactional revenue share): 80% of 40%
Downpour (credit sub transactional revenue share): 80% of 32%
Library, School, and Military sales
Library (a la carte)
Axiell, Baker & Taylor, Bibliotheca, Bidi, EBSCO, Follett, Hoopla, MLOL, Odilo, OverDrive, Ulverscroft, Wheelers, 3Leaf Group (a la carte sales): 80% of 45% (remember, library pricing is usually 2–3x normal retail pricing)
Library Cost Per Checkout
Baker & Taylor, Bibliotheca, Bidi, MLOL, Odilo, OverDrive, Ulverscroft (cost per checkout): 80% of 45%
Hoopla (cost per checkout), an app for library users that is especially popular in the American Midwest states, pays based on the total duration of the monetized content. Zero to 90 minutes is 24 cents. On average, authors make about $1 for a Hoopla checkout.
Amazon ACX royalties
Amazon, Audible (transactional revenue share): 80% of 25%
For reporting purposes, sales on Audible ACX fall into different categories: “AL” for “Subscription-Credit” sales; “ALOP” for “Subscription-Supplemental Credit” sales, and “ALC” for “Retail” sales.
You get 80% of the 25% audible sends to INAudio.
So for a $28 audiobook sold at retail price, you get $5.60.
Author payments are explained here.
How do you get paid on Voices by INAudio? What is the threshold for INAudio royalty payments?
“Every month you’ll receive a report that breaks out all of your sales for the month, with details for each partner. This information will be available in your [INAudio] dashboard, just select ‘My Account’ and click ‘Invoices’ in the navigation bar.”
“We process and pay out royalties every month, and each payment includes all royalties received from our payment partners within the past 30 days. Payments are triggered above a $100 threshold, or within 30 days following the end of each calendar year.”
“Most royalties earned on sales in January will be paid to [INAudio] at the end of February, after which we’ll make sure you’re paid in March. Royalties earned in February would then be paid in April and so on. We support four options: Direct Deposit / ACH, PayPal, Check, and Wire Transfer.” Most US authors opt for direct deposit but all authors are welcome to choose the payout method that works best for them.
Payment is by your choice of direct deposit/ACH, PayPal, check, or wire transfer.
As a nonfiction author looking to unlock the secrets to publishing success, it helps to have an expert in your corner.
Navigate the publishing process with ease and discover your publishing potential.
How to publish an audiobook with Voices by INAudio
You just upload your audiobook and get started.
Here are the steps [I’m quoting the old Findaway Voices by Spotify’s website]:
Create an account or login (at Findaway Voices prior to August 1).
Start your audiobook with the Start New Project button
Enter your audiobook’s title, metadata, cover art, and then review and agree to our distribution terms.
Upload your audio files (make sure they meet our technical requirements)
Tell us where to pay your royalties.
Choose where you want to sell your audiobook from our list of partners.
Approve and Submit for Publishing!
“To avoid any delays, we strongly encourage that you ensure your assets pass our requirements prior to submission.”
“Please note that all of the above steps have to be done by the author, not the narrator” and “you’ll have to get your audio files from the producer before proceeding.”
Note that “it can take up to 30 days (sometimes a bit longer) For your title to be live at the partners you’ve chosen.”
In your dashboard in “Retailer Links,” you’ll be able to retrieve the URLs for where your audiobook is sold. You’ll also receive weekly digest emails informing you of the URLs for where your audiobook is live.
Voices by INAudio pricing
Authors set the prices for their audiobooks that are distributed by Voices by INAudio. You can also set the price of your book for ACX, something you can’t do when publishing your audiobook through ACX directly.
Author and blogger M.K. Williams offers further guidance on audiobook pricing strategy in this excellent article, “Pricing Your Audiobook.”
M.K. says to consider “prices in your genre”; “placement of a book in a series (if applicable)”; “SRP v. promotional prices”; and “retail vs. lending prices.”
As M.K. notes, “When you upload your book . . . and fill in your metadata, there will be a suggested price pop-up that you can click on” based on sales data.
“If you are working on a series, know that a common and successful practice is to drop the price of book 1 as low as you can,” M.K. says.
Consider setting a sale price upon the launch of the book, the anniversary of the book release or a holiday that ties into the book, or some other special occasion. “When you set a discounted price, it should be intentional and planned out,” advises M.K.
And finally, don’t forget that your library pricing shouldn’t be the same as your SRP (suggested retail price). Libraries expect to pay a higher-fee for a one-time purchase. Or they pay a “per use” rental fee. Either way, you win, and your readers win.
Voices by INAudio technical requirements
Cover art technical requirements
You can view cover art technical requirements here. In general, the cover must be square, with no borders or letter boxing. It must be a PNG, JPG, or TIF file that is at least 2400 x 2400 pixels in size. The title and author must be clearly displayed on the cover.
Audio requirements
Audio requirements are similar to what you would find elsewhere, i.e., with ACX. Audio files must be “encoded as Constant Bit Rate and not as Variable Bit Rate.”
INAudio narrators
As with Findaway Voices by Spotify, it’s 100% DIY. You need to come with everything ready to go—your files, your cover, your metadata.
You’ll need to either do the narration yourself, hire someone to do it, or use the ACX or Author’s Republic marketplaces.
The audio specs are similar to what you would expect elsewhere and through ACX.
Do you need an ISBN to publish to INAudio?
No. They assign you an ISBN to use. The publisher name can be your name, your press or imprint (if you have one) or the name of your LLC.
Does INAudio allow AI narration?
Like Findaway, INAudio accepts AI-narrated audiobooks created with ElevenLabs or with Google Play Books—but only some of the retailers it distributes to do. I haven’t found a list of distribution partners who do and don’t accept AI-narrated audio files.
ElevenLabs is fee-based (see pricing options here). Google Play Books’ digital voice-narrated content is free to create.
Either way, authors create their digital voice-narrated audiobook, then “download the file package and upload it” to Voices by INAudio. “Following a standard review, the book will go live” on the sites of the retailers who accept digital voice-narrated titles.
“For listeners, all digitally narrated titles will be clearly marked in the metadata” and “the book description will be prepended with the first sentence stating, ‘This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.’”
Price promotions
From the “Marketing” tab, you can start a promotion under “Promotional Pricing.”
There are four steps to this process:
First, you name the promotion and choose an eligible title.
Then, you choose your retailer (your options are Apple, Chirp, or Barnes & Noble)
Then, you set the discount price of the audiobook. Some retailers allow your price to be free; others require a $0.99 minimum price. (I’m not sure which ones.)
Then you choose the start and end date for the promotion.
It’s kind of a bummer here that the retailer can still override your sale price. On the plus side, you can schedule promotions up to 6 months in advance.
Voices by INAudio vs. ACX
Voices by INAudio is available to authors worldwide. ACX is only available (directly) to authors from the US, UK, Canada, and Ireland.
Voices offers distribution to a wider variety of retailers, library partners, and subscription services. ACX offers distribution only to Audible, Amazon, and Apple Books.
ACX offers a narrator marketplace. Voices does not. You must have all your files ready to go in order to publish/distribute using Voices by INAudio.
➡️For more on publishing an audiobook with ACX, see “ACX Audiobook Royalties: How Much Do You Get Paid?”
Voices by INAudio vs. Author’s Republic
Author’s Republic has its own narrator marketplace; Voices by INAudio does not.
Author’s Republic reaches more distribution partners.
But it also pays 70% of net profits vs. Voices’ 80% of net profits. It appears they distribute your book through Voices’ network, plus Audiobook Store, Audioteca, Be Here, BookBeat, Bookwalker, DiviBig, Ebsco Information Services, eStories, Phonoz, Glowbook, Grupo Vida, High Books, Kids Radio, Listener U, Mackin Educational Resources, Permabound, PocketFM, Rava Ramit, Speechify, and UScribe.
Voices by INAudio vs. Kobo Writing Life
Kobo Writing Life distributes audiobooks to partners worldwide, providing access to some of the largest retailers in Canada, the US, and Europe. But Voices by INAudio’s distribution network is more vast.
Is Voices by INAudio worth it?
Yes, absolutely.
But be advised that in the past, there have been sudden or surprising changes to the terms of service. Eligible authors may still want to publish to ACX directly; royalties after INAudio takes its 20% cut are admittedly quite low. And now (as of summer 2025) a separate account is required to get your audiobook into the Spotify catalog, which is an added inconvenience.
These concerns aside, INAudio remains an excellent optional for audiobook distribution for authors. The vast global distribution, ease of use, and the access to retailer, library, and subscription models, and ability to set (and adjust) your own pricing, as well as the promotional features, puts it heads and shoulders above other audiobook distributors. The dashboard is easy to navigate and full of helpful insights; you can see the countries where your listeners are, your ratings, and the demographics of your audience.