[johnrgrace]

Audiobook natation isn't that expensive - the same narrators being used by publishing houses can do it for $200 an hour with it being 10-12k words per hour. Audiobook production is a few thousand for most books under the current system.

[drakonka]

For most self-published authors, a few thousand dollars is a lot to drop into a project that may never pay out. And in many cases if they do have the money, it makes more business sense to spend that budget on editors and cover designers across multiple books.

But there are definitely people who fund their own audiobook production. And narrator royalty share options exist too, which some use (I would personally not). It's just not the default option or choice for many.

[AlbertCory]

Accurate. Go on ACX and audition narrators. Also Voices.com.

The "per hour" rate usually means "per finished hour" not "per hour that they spent doing it."