Guide · updated 2026-11-12
How to record an audiobook at home
You can record an audiobook that passes ACX's checks in a spare room with a USB microphone. What makes it hard is not the reading: it is the hours of editing and mastering after it. Here is the whole job, step by step.
1. Make sure you have the audio rights
If you wrote the book and published it yourself, you almost certainly hold the audio rights. If a publisher is involved, check your contract. On ACX you claim the title, then choose to narrate it yourself.
2. Make the room quiet and soft
Most failed home recordings fail on the room, not the microphone. Pick the smallest, softest space you have: a closet full of clothes is a classic for a reason. Turn off fans, the fridge if it is near, and anything that hums. Close the window. Then record half a minute of silence and listen to it with headphones turned up: that is your room tone, and ACX wants its level under −60 dB.
3. Choose and place the microphone
A USB condenser or dynamic microphone is enough. Put it about a hand's width from your mouth, slightly off to the side so your breath passes it, with a pop filter. Keep the distance the same for the whole book: moving changes your tone from chapter to chapter. Do not use a Bluetooth headset: it sends telephone-quality sound. Wear wired headphones so the microphone hears only you.
4. Prepare the manuscript
Use a clean copy with every chapter heading in place: ACX wants each chapter's header spoken at the start of its file. Mark names and words you might stumble on, and decide how you will say them, once, for the whole book. Read on a screen or a tablet, never rustling paper.
5. Read, in sessions
Read in sessions of an hour or two, with water nearby and the same posture each time. ACX says new narrators should plan on five to seven hours of work for each finished hour. When you stumble, pause, go back to the start of the sentence and read it again; never patch half a word.
6. Edit out retakes and noises
Every stumble you re-read is now in the recording twice. Editing means finding each one, cutting the bad try, and taking out clicks, knocks and loud breaths, while keeping your natural pauses. This is the step that usually takes longest.
7. Master to ACX's numbers
Bring the loudness to about −20 dB RMS, limit the peaks to about −3.5 dB, make sure the noise floor is under −60 dB, and give each file 1 to 5 seconds of room tone at both ends. ACX's requirements, explained covers each number and the traps.
8. Export one MP3 per chapter
Export each chapter as its own 192 kbps constant-bit-rate MP3 at 44.1 kHz. Record the opening credits (title, author, narrator) and the closing credits as files of their own, and pick a retail sample of up to five minutes.
9. Check, then upload to ACX
Measure the MP3s themselves before you upload. Then upload the files in order on ACX, add the retail sample, and submit for review. ACX listens to every title before it goes on sale.
The shortcut: edit while you read
Steps 6 to 8 are what Instant ACX Ready does as you narrate. The teleprompter follows your voice; the space bar marks a retake and the stumble is cut out; the sound is cleaned and levelled as it arrives; a careful second listen compares what you said with the manuscript; and Export makes one MP3 per chapter and measures it. What is left for you is the reading.