How Self-Published Audiobooks Get Into Libby, hoopla and Library Apps

Audiobook distribution to libraries normally runs through a distributor, because nothing in the chain offers a self-service upload. Libby and hoopla are the apps readers borrow from, and neither takes files from individual authors. You send your finished audiobook to a distributor that supplies those apps, and each library then decides whether to stock it.

Can You Upload an Audiobook Straight to Libby or hoopla?

Neither Libby nor hoopla accepts an audiobook file from an individual author.

Libby is the app a library member borrows from, not a shop you can sell into. The buying happens one layer back, in OverDrive Marketplace, where library staff spend their digital budget. OverDrive describes its network as 92,000 public libraries, schools, colleges and universities, and corporate libraries, reaching 115 countries. Read that wording carefully, because it is often quoted as 92,000 public library systems, which is not what it says. Supplying that marketplace means completing a distribution agreement with OverDrive’s Publisher Account Services team, and its publisher page offers no self-service upload route. The enquiry form is built around a company rather than a book: it requires a company name, a company website, a company phone number and your job title, then asks what your catalogue covers and how many titles you hold.

hoopla, run by Midwest Tape, works the same way from the author’s side. Its content provider page says hoopla works with everyone from the largest studios and publishers to small independent providers, and offers a contact form rather than an upload button. It publishes no eligibility rules, no submission specification and no account of how a title reaches the catalogue; that sits behind a supplier login.

Neither company says whether it will take on a single self-published audiobook, and neither rules it out. What they publish is shaped for suppliers with a catalogue. For one audiobook, the route with terms you can actually read sits a stage further back, with a distributor.

A distributor already holds agreements with these platforms. It takes your finished audio files and delivers your audiobook to them on your behalf, and it publishes terms, channel lists and file specifications you can check before you commit. That route gives the process four links, and an audiobook has to clear each one in order:

1. You deliver a finished audiobook to a distributor.
2. The distributor supplies it to the library platforms it has agreements with.
3. The platform reviews it and lists it in the catalogue, which is the shop window library staff choose from.
4. A library decides to stock it, either by buying a licence or by agreeing to pay when a member borrows it.

That last link matters more than authors expect. Being listed in the catalogue is not the same as being on the shelf: a title can sit there for years without a single library taking it. We covered how librarians make those choices in a separate article on how libraries buy self-published books; this article is about the earlier problem of getting the audio listed at all.

Does an Audible Exclusive Contract Block Library Distribution?

An exclusive contract with ACX blocks every library route. ACX is Audible’s own platform for producing and publishing audiobooks, and it states the position plainly: it does not provide distribution to libraries, and authors who want libraries should choose a non-exclusive agreement. Under an exclusive agreement you may not sell or distribute the audiobook on any site or store outside Audible. What exclusivity does buy is Audible, Amazon and Apple Books; what it costs is every library app.

The commitment is long. A newly accepted exclusive title runs for an initial seven years from the date it first goes on sale, and then renews automatically in one-year periods unless someone ends it. That is worth knowing before you sign, because it is the term you are agreeing to, not a trial.

Check this first, because it decides whether the rest of the process is open to you at all. If your audiobook is already exclusive, you can make a one-time request to switch to non-exclusive once it has been on sale for at least 90 days. You contact ACX support to ask, and Audible processes the request within 30 days. ACX will not switch a Royalty Share or Royalty Share Plus agreement. That is the arrangement where the narrator takes a cut of earnings instead of a fee rather than a flat payment, and because the narrator holds a financial interest in the title, removing or changing it needs their documented agreement as well as yours.

Switching costs you money on Audible, and the size of that trade is worth knowing before you start. Under the royalty model that opened to all ACX creators on 26 May 2026, exclusive distribution pays 50% and non-exclusive pays 30%. Older titles sit on a legacy model of 40% and 25%, which ACX has said it will discontinue during 2026. Giving up roughly a third of your Audible rate is the price of reaching libraries, and every other retailer, at all.

Which Distributors Handle Audiobook Distribution to Libraries?

Only a handful of distributors deliver audiobooks to library apps, and an indie author normally reaches Libby or hoopla through one of them. Advice written before 2025 is unreliable, because Findaway Voices was renamed and split in two. Spotify launched direct publishing through Spotify for Authors on 1 August 2025. On the same date, distribution to everywhere other than Spotify passed to Voices by INaudio. Spotify’s help pages describe it as the service previously called Findaway Voices by Spotify.

Voices by INaudio carries the former Findaway route and lists retail, subscription, library and school channels. Authors keep 80% of the royalties INaudio receives. What the platforms pay INaudio varies by channel: it publishes ranges of 40% to 50% of list price for individual sales, 30% to 40% for subscription services, and 25% to 45% for revenue-share deals.

Author’s Republic lists OverDrive and hoopla among its channels and describes a network of more than 50 retail, streaming and library platforms. It pays authors 80% of what it earns after the retailer takes its share, and it does not ask for exclusivity.

PublishDrive charges a monthly subscription based on how many books you distribute and takes no percentage of your sales. Its published store list names OverDrive and hoopla among its audio destinations, and it does not ask for exclusivity either.

Draft2Digital is worth a separate word, because it is the name most indie authors know and it does not do this job. Its audiobook programme covers producing digital narration through Apple, and its partners page sends authors who already have finished audio to Voices by INaudio. If your recording exists, Draft2Digital is not the route.

Two practical notes from INaudio’s own help pages apply whichever distributor you use, because they describe how OverDrive behaves. A title priced at zero is filtered out of the OverDrive feed, so a free audiobook will not travel. And your title does not appear on OverDrive’s public website at all until a library has actually bought it, which means an empty search result early on is normal rather than a sign something failed.

Channel lists go stale faster than anything else here, because platform agreements get renegotiated and territories change. Before you pay for a plan or sign anything, ask the distributor in writing which library platforms it currently delivers audio to in your territory, and keep the reply.

How Do Libraries Pay for an Audiobook, and What Does the Author Earn?

Library platforms buy digital audio in two fundamentally different ways, and the difference changes when money reaches you. OverDrive sells the library a lending licence up front. hoopla charges the library each time a member borrows the title. Three licence types cover most of what a library will be offered:

hoopla does publish what libraries pay it, which is a useful anchor even though it is not your income. Its pricing statement says the average cost per circulation “consistently hovers around $2”, that no Instant title costs a library more than $3.99, and that fewer than 1% of the Instant catalogue sits at that ceiling. A second hoopla page puts the average “at or below $2.16”. Those are the library’s costs.

What reaches you is a share of that, and the share is set by your distributor rather than by the platform. Neither OverDrive nor hoopla publishes an author-facing rate for audiobooks. A 46% royalty figure circulates for OverDrive’s one copy, one user model, but it comes from Draft2Digital’s published royalty table, and that table covers ebooks rather than audio.

That leaves your distributor’s own rate as the only number you can plan against. Voices by INaudio and Author’s Republic both state that authors keep 80% of what the distributor receives, so the platform’s payment is the variable and your percentage of it is the constant. Treat any article quoting a fixed dollar amount per library borrow as an estimate unless it came off your own royalty statement.

What Files, Cover and Metadata Does a Library Platform Need?

A library-ready audiobook is a set of MP3 files split chapter by chapter, recorded at CD-quality settings, evened out for volume, and delivered with a square cover image and a product record. No single specification covers every platform. The Book Industry Study Group says the North American audiobook industry lacks a consistent framework. The recipient standards filling that gap are mostly incompatible with one another, which is why two distributors will hand you two different spec sheets. If you have not recorded yet, our guide to what self-publishing an audiobook involves covers the production stage that comes before this one.

What Audio Specification Should the Files Meet?

Build to the strictest version of each requirement, so the same files clear every gate. Author’s Republic publishes a full set, and it serves as a worked example because its numbers sit at or inside most other sheets:

• One file per chapter, with the opening and closing credits as their own separate tracks.
• MP3 at 44.1 kHz and 192 kbps or higher, held at a constant rate rather than allowed to vary. Those are the settings a CD uses, and most recording software offers them as a preset.
• Average volume between −23 dB and −18 dB RMS. RMS is the average loudness across the whole track, not the loudest moment in it.
• Peaks no louder than −3 dB, so the loudest moments do not distort.
• Background noise below −60 dB RMS, measured in the silence between sentences.
• About one second of room tone at the head of each file, and one to five seconds at the tail. The sheets disagree here: Author’s Republic asks for one to five seconds at both ends, PublishDrive for half a second to one second at the head. One second at the head satisfies both.
• A separate sample track of one to five minutes for retailers to play, with opening and closing credits as their own tracks of under two minutes each.

Those loudness figures are the same ones ACX asks for, so a master built to this standard serves Audible and the library channels without a second pass.

File length is where the sheets contradict each other. Author’s Republic caps a single file at 119 minutes and 170 MB. PublishDrive tells authors to stay under 78 minutes, which it attributes to a limit at Libby. Splitting long chapters so no file passes 78 minutes satisfies both, and costs you nothing but a few extra track markers.

What Do the Cover and the Product Record Need?

The cover is a different shape from your book cover. Audiobook covers are square, at least 2400 × 2400 pixels, and saved in RGB, the colour mode screens use. Building at 3000 × 3000 costs nothing and gives you headroom if a platform raises its minimum. No border is allowed. The title and author text on the image have to match your product record and your opening credits word for word. A cover reading “The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter” against a record reading “The Lighthouse Keepers Daughter” gets bounced at review.

That product record is the metadata: the fields that travel with your files holding the title, author, narrator, description and identifier. The identifier should be an ISBN of its own rather than the one on your paperback or ebook, because an ISBN identifies a specific format. Most distributors give you a free one, and it works with the partners that distributor supplies, but it does not travel with you if you leave. Buying your own avoids that, and our article on whether you need a separate ISBN for your audiobook covers the reasoning in full.

Do Library Platforms Accept AI-Narrated Audiobooks?

Some library platforms accept audiobooks read by a synthetic voice, on condition that the narration is declared. The same thing goes by several names, and AI narration, digital voice narration and machine narration all mean a recording produced by software rather than a person at a microphone. OverDrive does not exclude titles made with AI tools and asks publishers to identify them. Voices by INaudio accepts digital voice narration only through specific approved workflows. It adds the disclosure to the description automatically and limits delivery to partners that accept it. ACX still requires human narration unless it has authorised otherwise, so a synthetic recording has no Audible route at present.

Declare it in the metadata rather than only in the description. ONIX, the standard the book trade uses to move product records between systems, has a specific code for a synthesised voice. Using it means the disclosure travels with the record instead of depending on someone reading your blurb. Acceptance of AI narration for ebooks tells you nothing about audio, so check the audio policy for every platform you select.

How Long Does It Take, and Can a Title Be Rejected?

Expect two to six weeks between delivering a clean audiobook to a distributor and seeing it appear at most destinations, and allow up to 45 days for the full set of vendors. Author’s Republic quotes a wider spread of its own, from five business days after its approval to 60 days depending on the partner. Audible can take months. Building six to eight weeks into a launch plan is safer than promising readers a date you do not control.

Delivery is not acceptance. Three organisations check a title before anyone can borrow it, and each can stop it. Your distributor reviews the audio and the cover first, and files that miss the spec either stall or fail outright. The platform then runs its own content review; hoopla, for example, routes material from its distribution partners through review before anything goes live. The library decides last, which is a judgement about its own members rather than about your book.

A platform can also decline a title without explaining itself, for reasons that may be commercial rather than technical. Neither OverDrive nor hoopla runs an appeals desk for authors, so everything goes back through your distributor. They pass on the feedback, you fix the cause, and they resubmit the file. Most rejections at this stage come down to audio or cover faults, which is why the strictest spec sheet is the one worth building to.

Getting an audiobook into Libby and hoopla is a sequence, not an upload. Clear your Audible rights first, because that decides whether the rest is available to you. Build the files and cover to the strictest spec you can find, buy your own ISBN if you may move distributors later, then pick a distributor that publishes the library channels you want. The paperwork worth keeping is the written confirmation of which channels it actually reaches.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I ask my local library to buy my audiobook?

You can register interest in your own audiobook once a distributor has listed it in the supplier catalogue. In Libby, search for the exact title, tap “deep search” at the bottom of the results if your library does not hold it, then apply the Notify Me smart tag, which Libby documents at https://help.libbyapp.com/en-us/6115.htm. Libby shares that interest anonymously with all your saved libraries. It tells you if one buys the title. A tag does not guarantee a purchase, and not all libraries offer the feature.

Do audiobooks earn Public Lending Right payments in the UK, Canada or Australia?

Audiobooks earn Public Lending Right payments in all three countries, under different conditions, and distribution does not register you automatically. UK PLR covers audiobooks and e-audiobooks that carry a valid ISBN, pays up to a maximum of £6,600 a year, and asks you to register by 30 June for that year’s calculation. It excludes Audible downloads issued with an ASIN, the product number Amazon assigns instead of an ISBN. See https://www.bl.uk/services/plr. Canada requires a new 13-digit ISBN, accepts audiobooks published on CD or as a digital download within the last five years, excludes machine-narrated audiobooks outright, and pays only where the calculated total reaches CAD $50, at https://publiclendingright.ca/eligibility. Australia includes audiobook versions of eligible books and pays where a calculation reaches A$100; title claims for its 2027-28 programs close on 31 March 2027 and cover books published between 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2026, at https://lendingrights.arts.gov.au/.

Can I use the free ISBN my distributor gives me?

A free distributor-issued ISBN works for distribution, including that distributor’s library channels. It cannot follow you anywhere else, because it belongs to the distributor that issued it rather than to you. Buy your own audiobook ISBN if you may change distributor later, or if you plan to register for Public Lending Right in the UK or Canada, where a valid ISBN is a condition of eligibility.

Does publishing on Spotify for Authors put my audiobook in libraries?

Publishing through Spotify for Authors puts your audiobook on Spotify only, not in libraries. To reach other retailers and library platforms you opt in to sharing a copy with Spotify’s referral partner, Voices by INaudio, which Spotify documents at https://support.spotify.com/us/authors/article/getting-your-audiobook-on-other-listening-platforms/. Spotify does not currently share audiobooks with digital voice narration to referral partners, so a synthetic recording needs a different route.

Do library apps outside the US take self-published audiobooks?

Library apps outside the US take self-published audiobooks through the same distributor route. OCLC acquired cloudLibrary from the library technology company Bibliotheca in April 2024, when it served nearly 500 libraries across 20 countries. See https://www.oclc.org/en/news/releases/2024/20240402-cloudlibrary-now-part-of-oclc.html. BorrowBox lends audiobooks through public libraries in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Neither publishes a route for authors to submit directly, so check your distributor’s current channel list for the territory you want rather than assuming coverage.