We may change our policies at any time and it is your responsibility to keep up-to-date with and adhere to the policies posted here. We will notify account holders via email upon changes to these policies.
You can more affordably create audiobooks with Google Play Books’ advanced text-to-speech offering.
- Create audiobooks from ebooks in .epub format.
- Upload a new epub or use an epub from your Play Books Partner Center account.
- Choose from a wide variety of narrator voices.
- Edit narration elements.
- Add the required price and metadata.
- Publish audiobook content to the Google Play Store.
- Download your audiobook for distribution.
Important: You must own the audiobook rights to ebook titles you select for auto-narration.
Program Fee
During the Beta testing period, there's no program fee to generate and publish an auto-narrated audiobook. Google will notify you of any changes to the fees and such changes will not be applied retroactively.
Sales of auto-narrated audiobooks
You can download auto-narrated audiobooks and sell them on other book distribution platforms, however they must also be for sale on Google Play in every country available for sale elsewhere. The list price for your auto-narrated audiobook on Google Play must not be higher than the price of the auto-narrated audiobook on other retail platforms.
If you monetise auto-narrated audiobooks through ads, the Play Books auto-narrated list price should be similar to the auto-narrated earnings of any ad-supported platform.
If you encounter a pricing scenario not described in these policies, adhere to the principle that the list price on Play Books shouldn’t be higher than the equivalent price on other platforms.
Previews
Google creates previews from audiobook content in accordance with the following scale:
- One-minute preview for audiobook content with ten minutes of runtime or less
- 30-minute preview for audiobook content with 300 minutes of runtime or more
- A preview not to exceed 10% of the audiobook content runtime, where runtime is more than 10 minutes and less than 300 minutes
Tip: You may allow longer previews in your publisher account settings.
Reports
Google will make reports on the sales of auto-narrated audiobooks on Google Play available via our Partner Center. These reports will show sale transaction dates, list price at time of sale, revenue share and ISBN.
Refund Policy
Google will accept refund requests for purchase cancellations that are made within 7 days of sale, although we may also consider requests outside of this period, for example to comply with applicable laws. Google will grant a refund request for a purchase at any time if an auto-narrated audiobook on Google Play does not perform as stated, but the determination of whether an auto-narrated audiobook on Google Play performs as stated will be in Google's sole discretion. Google may also consider factors other than the performance of the auto-narrated audiobook on Google Play, such as whether an error was made during the sale and whether the refund request appears to be abusive. When a refund is granted, the sale transaction will be reversed: the user's access to the auto-narrated audiobook on Google Play will be discontinued, the user's money will be recredited, and your account will be debited. (Users may, in some cases, retain limited access to a refunded auto-narrated audiobook on Google Play if they have already downloaded a copy to a reading device.)
Content Policies
Auto-narrated audiobooks that you sell on Google Play must comply with the applicable Publisher Content Policies for Books on Google Play. For auto-narrated audiobooks containing sexually suggestive content that has no artistic, educational or political purpose (where permitted under local law), you must: i) mark them as mature in your metadata, ii) limit the preview to 0%, and iii) charge a minimum of $1 USD or the local equivalent for these audiobooks.
Buyer Currency
Google may permit you to provide List Prices for your auto-narrated audiobooks on Google Play, and a user to purchase your auto-narrated audiobook on Google Play, in a currency different from that of your designated bank account ("User Currency Purchase Transaction"). For any User Currency Purchase Transaction, you will be paid using Google Payments by wire transfer in US dollars or in the currency of your designated bank account, as determined by Google from time to time, based on an exchange rate that will be applied to the purchase amount (denominated in buyer currency) at the time the transaction is submitted. For example, you may price your auto-narrated audiobooks on Google Play in euros (EUR) for a Belgian user and, if your bank account is located in the United States, Google will pay you in US dollars (USD). The exchange rate will be determined by a financial institution utilized by Google to calculate exchange rates, and may be adjusted based on market conditions without notice. If a User Currency Purchase Transaction is subsequently subject to refund, reversal, chargeback or other adjustment, Google will apply the same exchange rate and currency that applied to the original User Currency Purchase Transaction in calculating the refund, reversal, chargeback or other adjustment. Google reserves the right to impose fees on this currency conversion.
Buyers view prices for auto-narrated audiobooks on Google Play in their local currency, USD, or EUR, at the discretion of the Google Play Store in that country. If you can't provide prices in the purchase currency, you may choose to enable currency conversion in the Payment Center of your account. This will allow Google to automatically convert prices provided by you in a base currency into other currencies. (This feature is not available in all accounts.) If you already publish ebooks on Google Play and have enabled currency conversion for ebooks, it will automatically be enabled for your auto-narrated audiobooks, too. Learn more about currency conversion.
Client Services Agreement
If you are acting as a distributor for auto-narrated audiobooks published by another company, you must enter into a Client Services Agreement with Google. The Client Services Agreement allows you to provide Digital Files and to implement settings for the Partner Program and for Google Play for each publisher you represent. Each publisher will also need to have an agreement directly with Google. Learn how to become a Client Service Provider.