Editorial consideration
AudioFile Magazine (now part of Kirkus Reviews)
Librarians, audiobook producers, and listeners who follow audiobook reviews
In short
AudioFile Magazine reviewed audiobooks, judging the narration and production as well as the writing, and since January 2026 its reviewers have written an audiobooks section inside Kirkus Reviews. Audiobook reviews are scarce, so coverage here reaches the librarians, producers, and listeners who follow them. The only published instruction is to email new and forthcoming audiobook releases to the Kirkus audiobooks editor as MP3 files. No lead time, fee, or eligibility rule for audiobooks is public, so confirm the process before you plan a date around it.
Submission does not guarantee coverage. The outlet decides whether and what it publishes.
AudioFile Magazine was, for more than three decades, the specialist review publication for audiobooks, covering narration and production as well as the text. In January 2026 Kirkus Reviews bought AudioFile. AudioFile's reviewers now write for an audiobooks section of Kirkus Reviews, and the AudioFile archive moved to kirkusreviews.com (opens in a new tab).
Here is what the official pages say today, and nothing more. audiofilemagazine.com (opens in a new tab) no longer serves its own site: it returns a permanent redirect to the Kirkus audiobooks section, which is a browsing page for published reviews and carries no submission instructions. The Kirkus publisher submission guidelines page carries exactly one line about audio: Audiobooks: Jennifer Dowell, jdowell@kirkus.com. Please send submissions of new and forthcoming audiobook releases as MP3 files.
Everything else is unpublished. Kirkus states a 4 to 5 month lead time for digital galleys and ebooks, but that sentence is not written about audiobooks, and no audiobook lead time, fee, eligible submitter, or self-published policy appears on either page. Do not calculate a deadline from the print lead time. Note that Kirkus Indie, the paid service, does not review audiobooks in any format, so the editorial route is the only one.
Why it may matter
Audiobook reviews are scarce, and AudioFile was the outlet librarians, audio producers, and listeners used to judge narration. That coverage now appears inside Kirkus, which puts an audiobook review in front of the same booksellers, librarians, and media who read Kirkus for print. Submission does not guarantee a review.
Do not confuse this with
Confirmed on the official pages: audiofilemagazine.com (opens in a new tab) returns a 301 redirect to the Kirkus audiobooks section, that section carries no submission instructions, and the Kirkus publisher submission guidelines page carries the one audiobook line quoted above. Not confirmed, because no official page states it: lead time for audio, fee, who may submit, self-published eligibility, and whether the print exclusions apply. Because AudioFile now lives inside Kirkus, the Kirkus naming confusion applies here too. The audiobook section is part of the free, publisher-submitted Kirkus Reviews editorial program. It isn't part of Kirkus Indie, the paid service, which doesn't review audiobooks at all. There is no way to pay for an audiobook review at Kirkus.
Rules and deadlines change. We last checked this information on September 14, 2026. If you see something that needs updating, please tell us.
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