This article is part of our Complete Guide to Royalty Management.
Audiobook royalties are some of the most complex in publishing. Unlike straightforward ebook or print sales, ACX introduces its own royalty models — exclusive versus non-exclusive distribution, bounty payments for new Audible members, and a payment timeline that differs from every other distributor. If you are tracking audiobook earnings in a spreadsheet alongside your KDP and Ingram data, you already know how quickly things get tangled. Getting ACX sales data into dedicated royalty software removes most of that friction.
Here is exactly how to export your ACX sales reports and import them into a system that handles the complexity for you.
Where to find ACX sales reports
ACX provides sales and earnings data through its online dashboard. To download your reports:
- Log in to your ACX account at acx.com.
- Navigate to the Sales Dashboard from the top menu.
- Select the reporting period you need — ACX lets you pull data by month.
- Export the report as a spreadsheet file.
The report includes a breakdown of units sold, returns, royalty earnings, and any bounty payments earned during the period. Each row typically represents a single title, with columns for the different earning types. Unlike Amazon KDP, which generates separate files per marketplace, ACX consolidates your audiobook data into a single report since sales flow primarily through Audible’s unified platform.
Understanding ACX royalty structures
ACX uses two distinct royalty models, and which one applies depends on the distribution agreement you selected when you set up each title:
Exclusive distribution (40% royalty share). If you granted ACX exclusive rights to distribute your audiobook, you earn 40% of the retail price on each sale. In return, ACX distributes the title exclusively through Audible, Amazon, and iTunes. This is the more common arrangement and the one most publishers and rights holders encounter.
Non-exclusive distribution (25% royalty share). If you retained the right to distribute through other audiobook platforms, your ACX royalty drops to 25% of the retail price. You can sell the audiobook elsewhere, but you earn less on each Audible sale.
Then there are bounties. ACX pays a bonus — historically around $50 to $75 — when a new customer signs up for an Audible membership and your audiobook is the first title they select. Bounty payments appear as separate line items in your reports and are not tied to the standard royalty percentage. They need to be tracked independently because they represent a different type of earnings that may or may not be subject to the same royalty splits in your author contracts.
Understanding these distinctions matters because your royalty software needs to handle each earning type correctly. A single audiobook title might generate standard royalty income at 40%, a handful of bounty payments, and a few returns — all in the same reporting period.
ACX payment timeline
ACX pays on a monthly cycle, roughly 30 days after the end of the sales month. Sales from January, for example, should arrive in your account by the end of February. This is faster than Amazon KDP’s roughly 60-day delay, which can cause confusion if you are reconciling payments from both platforms at the same time.
Because ACX and KDP operate on different payment schedules — despite both being part of the Amazon family — you will receive audiobook income a full month before the corresponding ebook and print income for the same sales period. Keeping track of distributor payment timelines across all your channels is one of the reasons a centralized system matters. When everything lives in the same place, you can see which payments have landed and which are still outstanding without cross-referencing multiple spreadsheets.
Preparing your files for import
The same principle that applies to KDP files applies here: do not edit the file before uploading. Download the report from ACX and leave it exactly as it is. Do not rename columns, remove rows, or try to reformat the data. When your royalty software natively supports the ACX file format, the raw export is the correct file.
Publishers sometimes try to strip out bounty rows or separate exclusive and non-exclusive titles into different files before importing. This is unnecessary and introduces errors. Upload the complete report and let the software sort out the different earning types.
How Royalties HQ handles ACX imports
Royalties HQ natively supports ACX sales reports as one of its 12 built-in file formats. The import process works the same way as any other supported distributor:
- Go to Add New Sales from the main menu.
- Drop your ACX report file into the upload area.
- Royalties HQ automatically detects the file as an ACX report. You will see the file type pre-selected in the dropdown. Click Continue.
- The system validates the file — checking for data integrity, duplicate periods, and expected column structure. If everything checks out, the status changes to “Ready to import.”
- Click Import. Each row from the ACX report becomes a sales line, grouped into batches for the period.
The system preserves the distinction between standard royalty earnings and bounty payments, so when you run your royalty calculations, each earning type flows through the correct rules. If an author’s contract specifies a different split for bounty income — or excludes bounties from the royalty calculation entirely — you can set that up in the contract terms without manually separating the data.
How ACX fits with your other distributor imports
If you are already importing Amazon KDP sales data, adding ACX to your workflow is a natural next step. Both are part of the Amazon ecosystem, but they arrive as separate files with different structures and different payment timelines. Keeping them in the same royalty system means you get a complete picture of each title’s earnings across formats — ebook, print, and audiobook — without maintaining parallel tracking processes.
Royalties HQ supports 12 native file formats across major distributors, so whether you are pulling in data from KDP, ACX, Ingram, or others, the import process is consistent. Download, upload, import. No reformatting, no manual data entry.
Tips for a smooth ACX workflow
Download reports as soon as they are available. ACX reports appear shortly after the end of each month. Downloading them promptly keeps your data current and avoids a backlog at royalty time.
Track bounties separately in your contracts. Decide early whether bounty payments are subject to the same royalty split as standard audiobook earnings. This is a contract-level decision, and getting it right from the start avoids messy corrections later.
Reconcile against your bank deposits. When the ACX payment arrives — roughly 30 days after the sales month — match it against the imported sales data. This confirms the import was accurate and catches any discrepancies before you pay out royalties.
Keep your original files. Store the raw ACX exports in a folder organized by month, just as you would for KDP or any other distributor. The unmodified originals are your audit trail.
Getting started
Audiobook sales are only growing, and publishers who get their ACX import workflow right now will save significant time as their catalogs expand. The key is to stop treating audiobook royalties as a special case that requires manual handling and start running them through the same automated pipeline as the rest of your sales data.
For a broader look at how royalty management fits together across all your distributors and formats, download our free guide. If you are ready to set up your first import, the importing sales data documentation walks through every step in detail.