Illuminory for authors
Sell your audiobook direct, on fair terms, to listeners who keep what they buy.
Why Illuminory exists
Illuminory was built by an independent author who had had enough of the big platforms: the limits they put on authors, and rates that leave most of every sale with the platform. That is not fair to listeners, to authors or to narrators.
So Illuminory aims to be a fair marketplace for all three. Simple terms, no contracts, no subscriptions. The listener pays once and keeps the book; a fair share of what they pay reaches the person who wrote it.
How it works for you
- Get in touch with a finished audiobook.
- We set it up: the cover, the blurb, the chapters, and the price in every listener's currency with the right tax on top.
- It goes on sale here and plays in the free Illuminory app: downloaded, offline, in the car, never losing the listener's place.
- You get 70 percent of the book's price before VAT, on every sale, with the figures in plain sight.
What you keep
- Your rights. Illuminory sells your book; it does not own it.
- Your freedom. No contract to sign and nothing to lock you in: you can take a book down when you choose.
- Your share: 70 percent of the price before VAT, on every sale. It is one line in the terms for authors, and you read it before you agree to anything. It is 70 and 30 forever: we will not change the split on you later.
The numbers
What one hundred sales of a ten-pound audiobook pay the author, here and on the big platforms, at the rate each one publishes.
| Platform | How it pays | You get, per £10 sale | 100 sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| Illuminory | 70 / 30. You get 70 percent of the price before VAT; the card fees come out of our 30. | £7.00 | £700 |
| Google Play Books, direct | 52 percent of list price, as authors report it; Google publishes no figure. | £5.20 | £520 |
| Audible, exclusive, cash sale | 50 percent of the sale under the model Audible opened in May 2026. | £5.00 | £500 |
| Spotify, direct | 50 percent of list price; no distributor fee since 2023. | £5.00 | £500 |
| Kobo, direct | 45 percent of list price at $2.99 or more. | £4.50 | £450 |
| Chirp (BookBub) | 45 percent in BookBub's own worked example; 35 percent during a featured deal. | £4.50 | £450 |
| Voices by INaudio (was Findaway Voices), wide | 80 percent of what each retailer pays, and retailers pay 40 to 50 percent of list. | £3.20 to £4.00 | £320 to £400 |
| Apple Books | Through a distributor only. Apple's rate is not published and sits in the band above. | £3.20 to £4.00 | £320 to £400 |
| Audible, exclusive, credit | 50 percent of your slice of the member's "Member Value": their £8.99 plan, £7.49 before VAT, shared across everything they listened to that month. | Up to £3.75 | Up to £375 |
| Author's Republic | 70 percent of what the retailer pays, typically half of list. | £3.50 | £350 |
| Kobo, subscription download | 32 percent of list price. | £3.20 | £320 |
| Audible, non-exclusive, cash sale | 30 percent of the sale under the 2026 model. | £3.00 | £300 |
| Spotify Premium, by the hour | A pool shared by hours heard; no published rate. Press reports put it at 20 to 40 euro cents an hour to the publisher; the figure here is an eight-hour book heard to the end. | About £1.40 to £2.80 | About £140 to £280 |
| Audible, non-exclusive, credit | 30 percent of the same slice of Member Value. | Up to £2.25 | Up to £225 |
| Audible, Royalty Share with a narrator | Half of the exclusive credit figure; the narrator takes the other half. | Up to £1.87 | Up to £187 |
| Audible Plus, all you can listen | The same pool as credits, and lower per listen by Audible's own account. | No published figure | No published figure |
£10 is the book's price before VAT, which is how Illuminory prices a book; each platform's rate is applied to the same £10. Audible sets its own prices by running time, so there the £10 is Audible's price, not yours.
Rates as each platform published them, checked on 2026-10-14. Audible's older 40 and 25 percent model closes at the end of 2026, so it is not shown. Where a platform publishes no figure the table says so rather than guess; tell us if one has changed.
Your readers, and everyone else's
Illuminory is new and does not bring you readers yet; you bring them. Tell your list that your audiobook is on Illuminory and that buying here puts most of the price in your pocket. We give you the page, the links and a discount code for their first purchase.
Inside the shop they see more than your book: categories, the editor's pick, best sellers, bundles for a series, reviews from listeners who finished, and a first chapter anyone can play. There are also "You might like" rows, built from what a reader has bought and what is in their cart, so a reader who came for another author's book is shown yours. All of it comes from what happens on Illuminory itself; nothing tracks anyone across the web.
We also make the Illuminory Author Podcast, where authors talk about their books, how they came to be and how they were made. Listen on Apple Podcasts
The apps
Listeners get native iPhone and Android apps, built by a seasoned app developer and following each platform's modern style: not a bolt-on viewer. They download for offline, remember the place across devices, and are built for the car: Bluetooth today, CarPlay and Android Auto next.
The apps are free with no in-app purchases, so Apple and Google take no cut of your sale. They play what the reader bought and nothing else, which is also what keeps them inside Apple's and Google's rules.
What you bring
- The right to sell the audio outside Audible: a non-exclusive title, or one you produced yourself. An Audible-exclusive book cannot be sold here until it is switched; moving a book from Audible says how.
- A finished audiobook as its studio files, one per chapter (WAV, AIFF or AAC at 44.1 kHz; we encode it for the app). The MP3 files your title holds on ACX will do too. An Audible retail download is not a master.
- A square cover, 3000 pixels or more on each side.
- The blurb, and a one-line tagline if you have one.
- Who narrated it: a person, a digital voice, or a full cast. The cover says so, plainly.
- The price you want, in pounds; listeners see it in their own currency.
Questions
Who takes the money?
Stripe, our merchant of record. It handles VAT and sales tax in more than eighty countries, and the listener pays in pounds, euro or dollars. You never deal with tax forms for forty countries.
Can listeners download my files?
Only inside the app, to their own device, tied to their account. The website has no player and no file links.
What if a listener asks for a refund?
Within 14 days and before they have started the book, we refund in full and the sale comes off your statement. Once they have started listening there is no refund for a change of mind, which the law allows because they agreed to immediate delivery at the checkout; a faulty file we fix or refund. We do not copy Audible's returns.
What about narration?
Human, digital or full cast are all welcome. The cover carries a mark saying which, so listeners always know what they are buying.
Why 70 and not more?
The other 30 covers the card fees, the tax handling, the hosting, the apps and the shelf. Sell from your own website and you keep more of each sale, and do all of that yourself. And it stays 70: the split will not change later.
How and when do I get paid?
In pounds, with a statement listing every sale. The rest is in the terms for authors, in plain words: read them before you write to us, because there is nothing else to sign.
Is there a dashboard?
Not yet. For now we send you the figures; a page of your own is on the list.
Will Illuminory find me readers?
Not at first; your list does that, and we say so. Inside the shop your book sits beside others in its category and series, in bundles and reviews, and in "You might like" rows built from what readers here buy. Discovery grows with every author who joins.
My book is exclusive to Audible.
Then not yet. A Pay-for-Production or self-produced title can be switched to non-exclusive after 90 days on sale with an email to ACX; a Royalty Share title cannot while the narrator deal stands. Moving a book from Audible goes through it step by step.
Get in touch
Tell us about the book and where we can hear a sample. A person replies, usually within a few days.
Prefer email? help@illuminory.com, with the book's title in the subject.