Spotify Direct, Author's Republic for the Rest: How the Lex Publisher Package Splits Your Audiobook Royalties

The Publisher package is a one-time $199 per book. It covers scored production and done-for-you publishing, and the royalty split is deliberately simple: we publish on Spotify for you and you keep all of it. Every other store goes out through Author's Republic, which keeps 20% of net on those channels and passes the rest through. Lex does not take a royalty cut anywhere. The $199 is the whole fee.

Key numbers: $199 once per book. Spotify: 100% of net to you, no aggregator. All other stores: one Author's Republic submission reaching 19 channels as of August 2026, with AR's 20% store fee deducted before payout. Setup on your side: about 15 minutes for Spotify plus a five-minute payout link. Uploads within one business day of your approval; store review typically 2 to 5 days.

Why is Spotify handled differently?

Spotify is the one store that lets you own the account and still let us do the work, so we treat it as its own lane. Spotify for Authors supports team members: you create a free account in your name (about 15 minutes, once), add your payout details, and invite publishing@lex-books.com with editing access. We upload the files, cover, metadata, and the digital-voice disclosure from inside your account. Spotify pays you directly, at its own author share, with no aggregator in the middle. We never touch that money and never hold your login.

There is a second reason Spotify stands alone. Spotify does not forward digital-voice titles onward to other retailers, so even if you wanted one upload to cover everything, Spotify would still need its own submission. Since it has to be separate anyway, we make it the store where you keep every cent.

What we actually do on Author's Republic

Everything that is not Spotify goes out in one Author's Republic submission under Lex's publisher agreement. That single upload fans out to Audible/Amazon, Apple Books, Google Play, Kobo, Everand (formerly Scribd), Storytel, Chirp, Audiobooks.com, BookBeat, Nextory, Libro.FM, and the library networks (OverDrive/Libby and Hoopla), among others. As of August 2026 that list is 19 channels verified for AI-voice titles. Author's Republic has no collaborator invite, so Lex is the account holder. AR keeps 20% of net on those channels; the rest is forwarded to you monthly with a per-store statement. Your only setup on this side is a five-minute bank/tax link.

The royalty line is the easy part. The work is the submission itself. Here is what Lex does inside Author's Republic for every Publisher title:

• Cover. Crop and rescale to exactly 2400×2400 JPG with an alphanumeric filename. Dark edges and vignettes that read as letterboxing get cropped about 2 to 3% and rescaled so AR QC does not bounce the art for "side borders."
• Loudness and peaks. Every track is checked for mean volume between −23 and −18 dB and peak at or under −1 dB. Short opening credits with silence pads often drift quiet; we gain them up. Hot chapters get pulled down before upload.
• Head and tail silence. One to five seconds of true digital silence at both ends of every file (opening, closing, sample, every chapter). We target two seconds. Bare ends and mid-word cutoffs bounce.
• Opening and closing credits. Separate tracks, each under three minutes. Opening: title, author, narrator. Closing: ending cue. Named and ordered so AR does not confuse them with the retail sample.
• Retail sample. Cut, named sample.mp3, and kept strictly under 300.0 seconds. Exactly five minutes fails. Prefer about 4:30 to 4:54 after the silence pads.
• Chapter upload. Chapterized MP3s in correct order (44.1 kHz stereo, AR-safe bitrate), opening first, closing last, sample in its own slot.
• Metadata, end to end. Title, subtitle, author display name, series, description (50 to 2,000 characters), language, abridged/explicit/public-domain flags, up to three genres, semicolon-separated keywords, sales rights, print and audiobook copyright owner plus year, MSRP. You confirm the sheet by email; we type every field into the portal.
• AI disclosure. AI Voice = Yes, engine named. Narrator is left as AR's auto-set "AI Voice." We do not duplicate AR's prepended disclosure line in the description. Channels that reject AI narration are skipped automatically.
• Account and payout hygiene. Tipalti tax/payment profile kept approved so remittances can flow. Photo ID and publisher name already handled on our side for concierge titles.
• Submit, watch, fix. Distribution agreement accepted, channels reviewed, submitted for review. We watch Project Feedback and rework anything AR flags (silence, duration, cover, loudness) so you never see the bounce email.
• Live-links summary. When listings clear (typically 2 to 5 days), you get every store URL that actually accepted the title.

We learned this the expensive way. In August 2026 two of our own AR submissions were bounced twice: first for missing head/tail silence and a sample three hundredths of a second over the five-minute limit, then again for cover borders, opening credits under −23 dB, and chapters peaking hotter than −1 dB. Every one of those is now a hard gate before we touch the upload button. The same checklist is public at lex.audio/authors-republic.

Two honest caveats. Apple Books reviews third-party AI audio title by title and may decline; we submit it and report either way. Audible/Amazon is reached through Author's Republic under a publisher agreement, not as a separate ACX project, because ACX does not accept externally produced AI narration.

What do you actually have to do?

Two things, both once. First, the Spotify for Authors account and the team invite, about 15 minutes with a plain-English checklist. Second, the payout link for Author's Republic royalties, about five minutes and it works on a phone. Everything in the list above is Lex.

If you already have a Spotify for Authors account, even better. Invite us in and we use what you have.

What is non-negotiable?

• Nothing is exclusive. Any store whose terms would lock the title is skipped, and you can pull the book from any store with 30 days' notice.
• The masters and the rights are yours. You get the final chapter MP3s, cover, and metadata sheet, plus the signed paperwork, whether or not you ever use us again.
• Disclosure is always on. Every store that accepts AI narration asks for a flag, and we set it correctly everywhere. Hiding AI narration is the only way to actually get in trouble in this market.
• No separate ACX upload. Audible is reached through Author's Republic. We will not misrepresent AI audio as human narration to get around a store policy.
• We never hold your money on Spotify and never keep your credentials anywhere.

How long does it take?

1. Production finishes. You approve the narrator, the sample, and the final master.
2. We build the retail package and run AR QC. Cover crop, loudness pass, silence pads, opening/closing credits, retail sample under 300s, chapterized MP3s, metadata sheet. You confirm or correct by email.
3. You do the two setup steps. Spotify account plus invite, and the payout link. Roughly 20 minutes total.
4. We upload everywhere within one business day.
5. Stores review, typically 2 to 5 days, and we send a live-links summary with every store URL as listings clear.

Start with the free chapter

Every production starts the same way: send your manuscript and hear the first chapter performed free, no card required, at lex.audio/first-chapter. If you like what you hear, the Publisher package takes it from finished audio to live on every store that will have it. Spotify pays you directly, the rest arrives monthly with a statement, and the only fee Lex ever charges is the $199 you paid up front. The full store-by-store breakdown, including the do-it-yourself playbook, is at lex.audio/distribution.