From author Josh Lanyon:

I spend a lot of time and energy — and money — on adding audio books to my considerable backlist. By the end of this year, I’ll have spent something over $20,000 commissioning audio books through ACX and Audible.com. I’ll have a total of 15 audio books, 12 of which I’ve personally commissioned.

. . . .

ACX is a division of Audible.com (which is owned by – surprise! – Amazon.com). ACX is something new and innovative in audio book production. It’s a creation exchange, a sort of go between for rights holders (that would be authors) and audio book producers (narrators/production companies). The finished books are either sold exclusively through Audible, Amazon and iTunes for a 50% royalty rate OR the rights holder declines the exclusive deal and gets a significantly lower royalty rate and has to go through the hassle of listing their work on Amazon and iTunes and other vendors all by their lonesome. You can pay for production outright – which is what I’ve done in all but one case – or you can try to find a producer/narrator to take a royalty share with you (in which case you have no choice but to make your audio book exclusive to ACX/Audible for seven years).

. . . .

Now lest it sound like my problem is audio book sales, no. Not at all. I saw my first two titles earn out within a couple of months of going live, and that was what decided me that ACX and Audible looked like a pretty solid investment.

. . . .

According to Audible’s website:

Whispersync for Voice is a breakthrough technology that allows you to switch back and forth between reading a Kindle book and listening to the companion Audible audiobook without losing your place.

. . . .

I should have given it a thought, though, because it creates a problem for ACX customers, and by ACX’s customers, I mean authors and narrators. I mean me. Amazon, in its perennial quest to crush all competition through loss leading, came up with the idea of encouraging readers to try out these whispersynced audio books by knocking the price of audio books down to $1.99 if the (current version) kindle ebook is also purchased.

Now that’s a terrific incentive, no question. Here’s the catch. The author has zero control over the pricing. Although it’s communicated as though Audible is doing us a huge favor with this bedrock pricing, they don’t  allow us to opt in or out. That pricing isn’t isolated to first books in a series or a certain percentage of an author’s backlist. As far as I could ascertain speaking to ACX, it isn’t time limited. It isn’t optional.

And the plan is to make the entire Audible catalog (those books linked to kindle editions, anyway) available through whispersync.

Now, it’s obviously not whispersync, I have an issue with. I’m all for technological advancement – I’m even for pricing incentives. And I guess if my publishers were footing the bill for my audio book production, I wouldn’t mind only making…say, thirty to fifty cents an audio book. I wouldn’t be thrilled, but it wouldn’t be a bad investment. It wouldn’t be costing me money that could have – apparently should have — been invested elsewhere.

Yes. Costing me money. Let’s say I’m paying $2000. to produce an audio book, and the first month I sell maybe 100 copies netting around $10.00 each – of which I receive my 50%…so $500. I don’t earn back my production costs. And within the following month or so, the book is whispersynced and now kindle readers can buy the audio book for $1.99. My cut would be half of that.

Oh! And if I’m doing a royalty share with a production company, we’re each splitting that .99 cents.

Link to the rest at Josh Lanyon

From All About Romance:

I became addicted to audiobooks about seven years ago and haven’t looked back. Before I had a membership at audible (thank you Lea, for the recommendation) I listened to audiobooks on CDs. Because CDs were quite costly, I primarily stuck with audiobooks by my favorite authors such as Jayne Ann Krentz, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Nora Roberts, and Linda Howard. I was unwilling to take a chance on newer authors. However, sometimes even with those favorites, the audio version was a risk in the hands of a less-than-desirable narrator.

Thanks to my audible membership I’m able to sample books before I download them, to make certain that I actually like the narrator. And thanks to Lea’s wonderful Speaking of Audiobooks columns, I’m now alerted to new-to-me narrators. As Lea wrote in her very first Speaking of Audiobooks column back in June of 2009, it’s all about the narrator.

. . . .

I now not only look for titles I think I might like in audio, but for new works by some of my favorite narrators.

. . . .

Don’t get me wrong, Jayne Entwistle does a marvelous job with the narration of I’ve Got Your Number. The problem for me is that she uses exactly the same voice for Poppy, the heroine of I’ve Got Your Number, as she uses for Flavia. That voice is so fixed in my head as being Flavia’s, that for at least the first two hours I was constantly pulled out of the story, thinking such things as “Why does Flavia have an engagement ring,” and “No, no, Flavia, dump that jerk!” and “Flavia, you’re only 11 years old, go back to your chemistry lab.”

Link to the rest at All About Romance

One chapter per day read by a different person and accompanied by an original work of art.

Moby Dick Big Read

From The Digital Reader:

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos ballyhooed text to speech inthe Kindle 2 in 2009.

But guess what’s now missing from the new Paperwhite Kindles even though it’s still present in the Kindle Keyboard 3G and Kindle DX models? TTS, aka “Read to Me.”

. . . .

I called the Kindle support people Thursday and learned that the Paperwhite models would be mute. Bummer.

. . . .

So, Jeff, what’s the strategy here, given the diminishment of the usefulness of the Paperwhite models for the people with dyslexia or other learning or vision challenges? Especially, how about students? Don’t you hope to crack the education market? Dumb move, this muting. Speech chips cost a pittance, so that excuse just will not fly. If you don’t want a speaker or there isn’t room for one, at least include a headphone jack. Just how could you be so out of touch with customers in this instance? I actually was hoping Amazon would go in the other direction and do TTS right with “Amy” and other refined voices from the whizzes at Ivona (or would pick up the equivalents from a similar company).

. . . .

I hope that librarians and advocates for people with disabilities will besiege Amazon with demands for TTS for all models. Same for joggers and walkers and others who would rather listen to their books when they need to pay special attention to their surroundings. (Yes, I do plead guilty to e-reading at times while walking—when conditions are safe enough.)

Link to the rest at The Digital Reader

From Galleycat:

Good news for audiobook listeners in the UK. Bardowl is a new iPhone app that lets listeners stream audiobooks on an iPhone for a monthly fee, which works kind of like Netflix for audiobooks. The company is hoping to take on Amazon’s Audible app by pitching itself as “Spotify for audiobooks.”

. . . .

At this point the app is only available in iTunes in the UK, but we hope to see it in the U.S. soon.

Link to the rest at Galleycat

From long-time Passive Voice visitor, author Gerard de Marigny:

I can illustrate why I’m bubbling over by telling you my journey to my 1st audiobook, _THE WATCHMAN OF EPHRAIM_. It started with a re-posting of a piece from Neil Gaiman’s Journal that my friend Passive Guy shared on his awesome “The Passive Voice” blog. Gaiman wrote about “ACX” – the Audiobook Creation Exchange.

Now, I confess, I would not even have known about ACX if it weren’t for Gaiman’s piece and I wouldn’t have known about Gaiman’s piece if it weren’t for Passive Guy’s re-posting. See what I mean about the indie community? It’s simply awesome – people sharing news, ideas, and suggestions. I have never felt one iota of competition within the indie publishing family … only the greatest forms of cooperation and even collaboration!

My story doesn’t end there though. I went to ACX and followed their simple directions. Within a few hours I had posted my first two novels to the exchange. Next, I had to be approved – probably just a authenticity check performed by the ACX team, but I was still excited to be accepted. I began receiving auditions from some wonderfully talented actors and production companies.

Yet, I had my heart set on one particular actor – Elijah Alexander. I contacted the production company that Elijah used for previous audiobooks he narrated, but they weren’t interested in royalty-share deals. Then, in a MOST BLESSED act of kindness and support for a neo-pro writer like me – Amazon/ACX offered a stipend for the production of my audiobooks! What that means is – on top of my royalty-share deal with the narrator/production company of my choice, Amazon was willing to PAY a stipend to the narrator/producer as an incentive to get the audiobooks made! Amazon/ACX wrote to me that, because they felt my novels would  be popular in audiobook form, they were willing to pay for their production.

. . . .

 The stipend allowed me to contact Elijah and offer him a direct r-s deal. The stipend allowed him to record it outside of the big production house he normally utilized. The end result … just over a month later, my first audiobook has been published!

Link to the rest at Gerard de Marigny

PG usually doesn’t include parts of blog posts that mention him, but he couldn’t effectively excerpt Gerard’s post without doing that.

Here’s a link to the original post Gerard described.

Update: PG apparently got the wrong information about this program and the Audible website didn’t represent the program adequately.

Here’s a summary from Scott, promoted from the Comments:

This is NOT for indie authors. If you’re an indie author and you look into getting your audiobooks on audible, all the links take you to acx.com, which is an Amazon company. If you sign up for acx as an indie author, you find out that your books aren’t eligible because your books weren’t published by a mainstream company. From the acx FAQ:

“What if my book wasn’t published by an ACX-eligible publisher?

Ineligible status is based on a broad algorithm using Amazon’s database, which helps us ensure that ACX serves only professionally published writers who have a track record appropriate for audio production.”

I tried about half a year ago to get my books listed on audible through acx, and ran into the wall that my books aren’t eligible because they weren’t published by eligible, professional publishing companies.

End of Scott’s Comment, Beginning of a further PG comment:

The whole promotion and website description of this program was enormously screwed up and it’s difficult to discern any sort of clear business purpose for it if indie authors are shut out. As designed, it looks like Audible will be paying millions of dollars for very little return.

PG will be a little more direct than he was initially about the various Audible contracts – A non-lawyer will have a hard time figuring them out – another way in which Audible is not indie-friendly.

PG will resist the temptation to fisk the CEO’s letter, but if Audible wants to deal with more self-reliant authors, it ought to become very friendly to indie authors.

Beginning original post:

Audible Author Services is a new program from Amazon subsidiary Audible.com. It’s for indie authors only It’s for authors published by established publishers. As Audible says in its FAQ, “We want to foster direct relationships with more authors.”

A letter from Audible’s CEO says, “We want to help authors to become more self-reliant. We want to connect with you, to encourage and support your effort.”

Audible Author Services is trying to be KDP for audiobooks. Audible’s website needs more work to be clearer about payments, but indie authors receive a $1 per sale “honorarium” lame bribe in addition to normal Audible royalties.

From Audible.com:

What is Audible Author Services?

Audible Author Services is a new way for any author whose audiobook is for sale at Audible.com or Audible.co.uk to connect with Audible directly. Through Author Services, authors can:

• Receive an honorarium of $1 per unit sold at Audible.com, Audible.co.uk, and iTunes, and increase awareness of their book in audio format;
• Obtain samples and links from Audible for use in social media, blogs, or on their websites – wherever they communicate most easily with their fans – as part of our “quick start” audio awareness plan;
• Gain direct interaction with Audible marketing and merchandising teams; and
• Obtain a free copy of their audiobook from Audible.

Why has Audible developed this service for authors?

We developed Audible Author Services because:

1. It’s the right thing to do. There’s nothing much more challenging or meaningful than writing a good book.
2. We want to foster direct relationships with more authors. We have had great success working directly with authors, and these partnerships have led to audience expansion and greater consumption of audiobooks. We know authors work very hard to promote their books; we want to encourage authors to promote their audio versions at the same time. We want all authors in the Audible store to benefit from working with us.
3. Authors whose books are unavailable in audio are disenfranchised from an exponentially growing audience for their work. Through Audible Author Services, we hope to increase awareness among those authors and encourage them to get into the game.

. . . .

What if my titles aren’t available in audio?

Audible’s Author Services program is one of many good reasons to rectify that situation. One of the easiest, best, and no-cost ways to get your books into audio is through the Audiobook Creation Exchange (www.acx.com), a service created by Audible that connects rights holders with audiobook producers in order to have more audiobooks made. If you’re not sure whether you hold the audio rights to your book, check your book contract or call your agent or lawyer. We want to help you reach the growing number of audiobook listeners who are hungry for more audiobooks. Please email us with questions at charcar@audible.com.

. . . .

Are all authors and titles eligible for Audible Author Services?

An author must be a living person (not an agency, publisher, or estate) to be eligible for the program. Titles must be audiobooks (not performances, speeches, or radio plays), and they must be available for sale at Audible.com and/or Audible.co.uk.

Can my agent or my audio publisher enroll in Audible Author Services on my behalf?

Audible Author Services is about direct interaction with authors. The honorarium is a direct payment from us to you, a way for us to reward you for promoting your work. Sharing the payment with your agent is at your discretion. You are free to send a portion to your agent if you wish, but this is outside the scope of Author Services.

Please note that participation in Audible Author Services will not affect your regular royalty revenue stream from Audible and/or other audio publishers.

I don’t live in the US – am I eligible?

Authors anywhere in the world are eligible, as long as your book is for sale at Audible.com and/or Audible.co.uk. Participation in the program requires a W-8-BEN with an original signature mailed to Audible Author Services at One Washington Park, 16th Floor, Newark, NJ 07102 USA.

Link to the rest at Audible.com

Audible provides tips and tools for promoting your audiobook here.

If you work with a producer to create your audiobook, you’ll be looking at either production fees or split royalties.

Passive Guy hasn’t gone through Audible’s Legal Contracts in detail, but a quick scan shows several places where the contracts could be made much easier for authors to understand. PG isn’t in a position to say the agreements are unfair and there appears to be a fairly robust right for an author to terminate the Account Holder Agreement at any time, but the collection of related contracts is a dense thicket that’s not a model of clarity.

Update: Per Joe’s clarification in the comments, this offer is for US citizens only, despite the statement in the FAQ.

From The Digital Reader:

Amazon made a move today which shows that they’re nit just trying to cut publishers out of the ebook market; they’re horning in on the audiobook market as well.

They’ve just announced a new $20 million fund for authors. They’re calling it Audible Author Services, and authors who sign up will get a buck for each title sold via Audible. Clever, no?

The program is going to formally launch on Sunday, and it really is that simple.  Authors don’t have to do anything other than sign up, and what’s more, Amazon says that they don’t have to share their earnings from the program. That’s going to go over well.

. . . .

And while it’s obvious Amazon wants to bypass the publishers, I suspect that they are also working to build the social aspects as well. Authors can be their own best salesmen, but first they have to be interested in doing it and I’m not sure that was happening before. While I can easily recall authors pushing their latest ebook, I don’t know the last time one pushing the audiobook at the same time.

And yes, I do think the long term goal is to bypass publishers. Amazon wants authors to sign in with their existing Amazon accounts, you know, the ones they use to submit their ebooks to KDP. This is going to let Amazon connect 2 possibly unrelated details about each author.

Link to the rest at The Digital Reader

From PaidContent:

Hoping to skirt Penguin’s library e-book restrictions by checking out a hot new title as a digital audiobook instead? Sorry, that strategy will no longer work as Penguin changed its library policies again today.

. . . .

This change does not affect any Penguin audiobook titles currently in your library’s catalog. Your library will be able to purchase additional copies of titles released before 11/14/2011. However, titles released after this date and new releases will not be available, per instruction from the publisher.

The latest restrictions come about two months after Penguin announced that it would no longer offer any new e-books through libraries. (At the time of that announcement, Penguin also cut off library lending on Kindle; it has since restored Kindle library lending.) The cut-off date for new e-books and digital audiobooks is the same.

. . . .

When Penguin pulled new e-books from libraries, I wrote about some of the reasons a publisher might do this. One of those reasons: Publishers might worry that e-book library lending will cut into sales. This seems less applicable to audiobook library lending, however: Most digital audiobooks are significantly more expensive than e-books, so users who can’t get them from libraries are not as likely to buy them.

Those frustrated library users might go buy the e-book or print book (that is what publishers would like them to do, surely). But they may also might also head to the Amazon-owned Audible.com, which offers downloadable audiobook plans starting at $14.95 per month for one title and also sells the titles as á la carte downloads.

Link to the rest at PaidContent

From Neil Gaiman’s Journal:

I was talking to an author last night. Actually, we were sending text messages to each other, something I don’t do a lot of, but it was sort of fun, texting. I’m not going to identify her, or the book.

She had a novel published recently by a major publisher. I read it. I really loved it.

I thought, Why not see if I can do it as a Neil Gaiman Presents Audiobook, through ACX?

I asked if there was an audiobook. She said, “No, no audiobook.”

I asked who had the rights, and whether I could do it in ACX. She was thrilled and said of course, and she’d find out if she had the rights or if her publisher did. We talked about what kind of voice narrator she’d want, and whether a male or a female narrator would suit the book best.

And then I got a message from her saying “Oh. Bizarre. I just looked online and see there is an audiobook of (the novel) which no-one ever told me about. It apparently came out in November.”

I went online and looked. There was indeed an audiobook, and it had a terrible cover. And this morning brought an email from the author saying, sadly “Don’t listen to the (novel) audiobook. It might be the worst thing I have ever heard.”

I felt so sorry for her.

. . . .

[excerpts from an interview Neil had with Salon]

Publishers would take audio rights but then never do anything with them. … That process is that you persuade your publisher to do an audiobook and then you have no control over who gets cast, or who reads it. You have no quality control over pronunciation or goofs or anything like that. And then your publisher brings it out and then your publisher remainders it.

. . . .

Can you talk a bit about the importance of the right narrator, and how much that person can add to or subtract from the audiobook experience?

I remember once talking to a best selling author about audiobooks. He’d written a book that was narrated by a 20-something black male and the audiobook was read by a 50-something white female. He had no say in this and after listening to it for five minutes he stopped, feeling physically sick.

. . . .

I think what I want to say mostly is, if you are an author, Get Involved in Your Audiobooks Early. Get your agent involved and interested. Talk about them at contract stage. Find out if you’re selling the rights, and if you are selling them then find out what control you have or whether you are going to be consulted or not about who the narrator is and how the audiobook is done.

. . . .

If you’re an agent, notice that we are not living a decade ago, when audiobooks were expensive bells and whistles that meant very little, that normally wouldn’t be done for anything outside of major bestsellers, when abridgments were often the order of the day: we’re entering a golden age, in which there is no reason that any book shouldn’t be available in professionally produced audio. Unless you know that the audio rights are going to be used and used well, keep them for your author. And if they are being sold with the book, then guard your author, and make sure that she or he gets rights of approval.

Link to the rest at Neil Gaiman’s Journal and thanks for the tip from Mercy.