Google Auto-Narrated Audiobooks

Publishing terms

Formats

Machine-narrated audio generated from an ebook already supplied to Google Play Books

Distribution

Google Play Books

Territories

Publisher designates territories, but must enable sales in at least every territory where the audiobook is sold directly or through third parties

Exclusivity

Not requiredFormally non-exclusive, and in practice tighter than that word suggests. While the audiobook is live you may sell it elsewhere, but only if it is also on sale on Google Play in every country where it is sold elsewhere, and only if the Google Play list price is no higher than the price anywhere else. The real constraint is section 6.4: withdraw the audiobook and you may not offer it for sale directly or through any third party afterwards — including lending programmes and subscriptions. That restriction survives termination of the agreement. Google may also keep indexing the withdrawn audiobook in Search Results.

Royalties

• 52% of list priceAuto-narrated audiobook revenue splitSection 5.1 sets a flat 52% of the List Price, or the Fixed Net Price where fixed-book-price law applies. There is no territorial uplift equivalent to the 70% the ebook programme applies in some markets — the audiobook rate is 52% everywhere.

Fees

• Program fee — freeFree during the Beta testing period, which is the current state of the programme. The agreement does not fix this: section 2.1 leaves the fee to the Program Policies, which Google may update, refundable only as those policies describe. Changes are not applied retroactively and Google will notify the publisher, but the fee is a policy setting rather than a contractual term — treat the zero as current rather than guaranteed.

Payment schedule

No more than 60 days after the end of the calendar month in which revenue was received. Google is not obliged to transfer funds while the earned balance is under $100 USD. On termination the earned balance is paid within 90 days, with a $1 floor.

Rights & privacy

Manuscript upload

Required

Cloud storage

Yes

Account required

Yes

AI features

Built into the service

AI training on your work

Permitted by the termsRecorded as permitted rather than unclear, and the distinction from Amazon KDP’s silence is deliberate. The words “training”, “AI” and “machine learning” do not appear in this agreement either. What does appear, in section 3.1(a), is an affirmative grant: the publisher authorises Google, worldwide, non-exclusively and sublicensably, to “use, copy, adapt, and create derivative works of the Publisher Content” for three purposes — creating the audiobook, “testing and making improvements to the Google Services”, and improving the audiobook content and user experience. Section 3.1(b)(v) repeats the improvement purpose for the finished audio. “Google Services” is defined as any products, services or technology provided by or being developed by Google or any affiliate. A right to create derivative works of your text in order to improve technology Google has not built yet is not silence about training; it is a permission wide enough to contain it. Two things sharpen this further. The product itself is a machine-learning system whose input is your prose, so the improvement purpose is not hypothetical. And section 6.6 lists 3.1 among the clauses that survive termination — ending the agreement does not end this permission.

Content licence

Recorded as perpetual because of what section 6.6 does to it. The grant in section 3.1 is worldwide, non-exclusive and sublicensable, covering use, copying, adaptation and derivative works of the book’s text, and use, modification, adaptation and exploitation of the finished audiobook across Google Services — sale, previews, search results, Family Sharing, marketing and service improvement. Section 3.2 adds a royalty-free licence over the content, the audiobook and the publisher’s brand features for marketing, presentations, financial reports, press releases, customer lists, websites and blogs. Section 6.6 then lists sections 2.5, 3.1 (bar one sub-clause), 3.2 and parts of 3.4 as surviving termination. Ownership does not move — the publisher keeps its intellectual property and its brand goodwill, and must warrant it holds every right needed to let Google narrate the book. But the licence outlives the relationship.

Deletion

Withdrawal is available and does less than it sounds like. An audiobook can be removed from future sales in the Publisher Account at any time, and the agreement can be terminated on 30 days’ notice at the publisher’s absolute discretion. After that, Google may continue to index the withdrawn audiobook to show it in Search Results, buyers keep what they bought, the derivative-works licence survives, and the audiobook may never be sold anywhere else. Nothing in the agreement addresses deletion of the generated audio or of anything derived from the text.

Export

The weakest of the seven records here, and unusually so. You can download a copy of the finished audiobook from the Publisher Account, which sounds like portability until you read section 6.4: once the audiobook is withdrawn from Google Play you may not offer it for sale directly or through any third party, including lending and subscription platforms. So the asset exists, you hold it, and you cannot sell it. While it is live, selling elsewhere is permitted only if Google Play carries it in every one of those countries at a price no higher than anywhere else. The one genuine escape is to commission a human-narrated version, which section 2.5 treats as a separate product under a separate agreement.

Policy reviewed 4 September 2026