From The Digital Reader
After news broke last week Audible was paying an abysmally low royalty rate for its romance audiobook service, Audible Romance, the audiobook retailer promised to patch the problem with a bonus, but wouldn’t give specifics.
The bonus payments have started to arrive, and we still don’t know any more than we did before.
. . . .
So far the reports from authors include:
- I received my bonus. It was $140. I only made $5 in the program.
- I got $25 and I had no minutes for the period.
- I made one cent from two books and got a $25 bonus.
. . . .
While it’s great that Audible is making up for last quarter’s disastrous royalty payment, they still haven’t said anything about how they will fix the fundamental problem of the Audible Romance subscription service.
Link to the rest at The Digital Reader
PG says Amazon has rarely made a misstep when it comes to compensating authors, but he suspects more than one indie author (and way more than one voice actor) is mentally placing Audible on probation.
Audible’s product quality is also likely to take a hit as authors choose lower budget narrators like Uncle Harry, who was a shock jock in Los Angeles thirty years ago, still has a bunch of old recording equipment in the garage and promises not to do drugs before recording sessions.
Successful indie authors are entrepreneurial and will spend their time and effort where there’s a real payback.
What is the consumption unit for Audible? (For KU is is a page read.)
What is the recent author payment per consumption unit?
Does Audible publish the total monthly distribution amount like they do for KU? If so, what’s a recent figure?
Here’s Nate’s report:
https://the-digital-reader.com/2018/02/28/authors-flee-audibles-romance-subscription-ridiculously-low-royalty-rate/
I finally got ahead enough to fund some audiobooks on my own, without a 50-50 share deal through ACX/Audible. The first one, a short story, has been produced, and is being distributed through Findaway Voices…and the second, a novel, is being produced now, and will follow the same path. While Audible and ACX are included in my choices for distribution, it feels great that I don’t have to stay with them, and can pull my work anytime.
Count me as one that is tired of ACX/Audible’s shenanigans.
Between one thing and another that I’ve seen going on with Audible/ACX, I no longer feel so bad that I haven’t been able to afford to do audiobooks (and my sales are not such that I would be able to get a narrator to agree to royalty split). Actually, I’m kind of glad – I’m starting to feel like I dodged a bullet.
Since last summer, I’ve been noticing more and more cracks in Amazon’s infrastructure. I will NEVER put all my eggs in their basket.
I’m glad I’m not the only one.
What are the cracks?
Speaking as an author of two series of reasonably popular international crime thrillers, I’ll never deal with Audible again. I put out four titles with them and only now realize that they’re not much more than an outright scam.
We pay all the costs of producing an audio book, but THEY determine the price for which we can sell it. Worse, they’re constantly pushing so many deals and discounts and packages to their customers that for years now I’ve averaged less than $1 in royalties for each book of mine they’ve reported selling. Less than ONE FREAKING DOLLAR, a quarter of what an ebook sale earns me. That’s simply the next thing to theft. Why do authors keep giving Audible the material they need to sell to stay in business and letting them scam us? As far as I’m concerned, I’m done with them.
My book “Vampire Vlad V” is on Audible. I had a very good narrator and she did a good job narrating the character in the book. We agreed to split 50-50 and I didn’t have any expense, and it is a short book luckily for her too. Money wise; unless you’re a mega-seller you’ll never recover the recording fees.
I really appreciate that Passive Guy understands the realities of authors’ lives and bank accounts. “…where there’s real payback” is important.
There’s a lot of yakking (from Amazon and elsewhere) about the benefits of issuing audiobooks. But realistically, to hire a decent narrator, we’re talking at least $2,000 PER BOOK, plus mucho author time to screen, supervise, listen & provide feedback.
It troubles me when readers email asking for my books on audio…so they can borrow them free from some program or service or other. I sympathize–my late mother benefited from audiobooks–but I can’t afford thousands of dollars to subsidize these.
Author beware! And thank you, Passive Guy, for your support.
You’re welcome, Jacqueline.
> Uncle Harry
He can’t be much worse than Snot Man, Sneerboy, Mumble Woman, and Valley Girl, who do so many of Random House’s audio books.
Valley Girl talks so slow in some of the books I’ve gotten, it’s like she’s sounding the words out as she goes along.
“… and promises not to do drugs before recording sessions.”
Actually his voice is better if he’s ‘popped’ a few, though he does sometimes stray off what’s written on the page in front of him … 😉
“Successful indie authors are entrepreneurial and will spend their time and effort where there’s a real payback.”
And newbies and the so far unsuccessful will sing on the street corners in the hopes of being noticed/discovered (then they can worry about making any money off it.)
Amazon gives their units a lot of leeway to run their operations but this is the second time Audible mishandles a move leading to a big ruckus. Odds are the Audible folks heard from Bezos and these bonuses are a partial mea culpa. Unless they had a serious one-time flaw in their accounting there is another shoe yet to drop.
Romance is big money and neither writers nor readers will put up with much. So they need to find a way to properly compensate authors without annoying readers by limiting their consumption. After what happened to Oyster and Scribd they really should’ve known better.