A self-publishing audiobook checklist

You have a finished manuscript and you want a listening edition. Before you start narrating, run through this. Ten minutes of preparation here saves you re-rendering whole chapters later.

Prepare the manuscript

The cleaner the text, the better the read. Audiobook narration follows your punctuation closely, so the page is the score.

• Keep one blank line between paragraphs so chapters split on clean boundaries
• Spell out anything you want read in full — numbers, abbreviations, acronyms
• Remove page numbers, headers, and footnotes that should not be spoken
• Decide how you want em-dashes and ellipses handled, and be consistent

Check the rights you hold

This is the part people skip. You can narrate any text you have the rights to. Make sure that includes:

• Your own writing, in full
• Any quotes, lyrics, or excerpts cleared for audio use
• Cover or companion text you are reusing from a print edition

If you are not certain you hold audio rights to a passage, leave it out.

Cast and test before you commit

Pick a narrator, then audition them on your hardest chapter rather than your first one. Listen on the device your readers will actually use — phone speakers and earbuds are less forgiving than studio monitors. Adjust the lane per chapter if a section needs more range.

Listen end to end

Generate the whole book, then play it through as a listener would. You are checking for pacing, mispronounced names, and any chapter that feels rushed. Re-render only the chapters that need it — your finished ones stay untouched.

Ship it

Download each chapter as MP3, or share the public listening link so early readers can hear the book before launch. Then do the thing that started all of this: let people listen.