Authors deal with a lot of challenges in our careers. From creativity theft to income theft from the book companies we rely on and everything in between.
I’ve had four of my books stolen and uploaded to pirating sites, one of which used those stolen books to train a certain well known AI. Many authors had more than that stolen. The court system ruled against author copyright.
The companies that should be for us are always looking for ways to take advantage of us. Amazon keeps most of the profits for sales. With a $15 paperback, the author profit is generally $3 or less, depending on the size of the book. E-books are a little better, but not by much. Audiobooks through Audible are the absolute worst.
When a reader purchases an audiobook, the author is supposed to get 25-40% of the price (depending on retailer exclusivity.) That percentage is abominable to begin with. Add to that, Audible chooses the price of our audiobooks. So many times, they have marked my 10 and 12 hour audiobooks down to $4, of which they give me around $1.00 to $1.50.
Considering it costs me, not them, around $4,000 to produce each audiobook, I find that deeply disheartening. At that rate, it takes YEARS to make back the money for that audiobook. And that’s if the books aren’t listened to and then returned for a refund.
Even if you listened to the whole thing, as long as you purchased it with a credit, people with Audible memberships can return it for a refund within a year. How absurd is that? I have had so many people listen to my books, return them for a refund, and then move onto the next book in the series. Audible doesn’t protect authors.
But things have gotten worse with Audible Plus. My books are not in Audible Plus, but it doesn’t matter. According to experts who keep track of Audibles policy changes, their new pay scale, which we cannot currently opt out of, funnels income from direct author sales into Audible Plus.
What these experts are saying is that if Suzy buys my book with a credit, I get my percentage. If Suzy then goes on to read someone else’s book in Audible Plus, Audible takes some of my direct sale percentage and funnels it into the pool to pay those other authors. Excuse me? How does that make sense? What should happen is: Audible Plus authors are paid out of Audible Plus membership fees. The end. It should never be taken from authors who aren’t even participating in the program.
For authors, this is a deeply disturbing move by the company. Objections have been brought for the past year while this new pay scale was in beta, but that clearly didn’t sway the company.
Situations like this are why I sell my books in every format on my website, including audio. I know I can’t offer as good of a deal to readers as Audible or Amazon (I’m just little me) but I try to price my books reasonably and offer discounts (like: AUDIO 30 for my audiobooks)
Audible and Amazon continue to be the leading online book retailers, which means to make a living, authors need to use them, but I suspect you will see more and more authors building websites and shops to distance themselves from these companies.
I, for one, support this move by authors!
The way authors are treated is completely unfair and unacceptable. I will make the effort to order straight from the author when possible.
This is why I try to buy direct from authors (like I do with you 🥰) or from traditional publishers like Baker or White Crown. I do also use Amazon and audible but only for books I can’t get other ways. And since I now can’t hold physical books for long now, due to nerve damage, I wish more authors offered audio books on their websites.