Audiobook Uncertainty

What's up Super-People.

So, I usually try and keep things fun and exciting here, but I've got some news for our audiobook fans. The future is uncertain now as Audible has rolled out an entirely new royalty model that will actively hurt both authors and narrators (and by extension audio consumers) especially in the LitRPG community.

Audible, or ACX where the books are hosted, has been notorious for being predatory for years, previously allowing returns of audiobooks for up to a year and stripping the royalties from the author. It got so bad that they were eventually forced to change it, but now, they're at it again and this time, in a much worse way.

Until now, authors and narrators had a choice. Pay for audio production, which averages around $300-$500 per hour of finished audio (Which is THOUSANDS per book in GameLit), or do a royalty split with a narrator, which is what many authors (myself included) tend to do. The catch was that ACX took a whopping 60% off the top - for reference, authors get to keep 70% of Kindle sale royalties - leaving the remaining 40% to be split between the narrator and author.

The 40% remaining was also only offered if you were exclusive with ACX. So, if you decided you wanted to take your audio elsewhere, that 40% dropped to 25%. Authors and narrators were willing to put up with this, since there were no other options. Audible owns over 80% of the market share, which is as close to a monopoly as can be.

Now the new royalty model comes along. Audible says it will be better for everyone. They're now offering 50% royalties instead of 40% and allowing authors to "suggest" audiobook pricing (and I'm using that term extremely loosely) additionally, you can enroll your books in ACX's AYCL (All You Can Listen) catalog to earn extra. It sounds good on the surface right? But here's the kicker.

If a customer used a credit to purchase an audiobook in the past, the author would receive 40% of that credit's value. Now, instead of that, ACX is taking that credit and throwing it into a big bucket with all the other audiobooks that same customer listened to in the same month. So, before, it was basically a direct sale. Now, if someone listens to a 20 hour audiobook bought with a credit, then listens to 9 other books enrolled in the AYCL program, the value of that credit is heavily diluted.

Where before you might have a $10 value and get $4 out of it, you now have a $20 total value pool that gets divided by the number of other books listened to (9 in this case) and in the end, you walk away with 50% of a MUCH smaller total share (only 50 cents in this case).

Why is Audible doing this? It's simple: Money and AI. It looks good for their bottom line. More than that, as Narrators start refusing Royalty Share due to slashed royalties and rising costs, people will have only one alternative, which is ACX's AI voices as paying a narrator $6,000 for a 20 hour audiobook is beyond most indie authors. Coincidentally, ACX takes a bigger cut if you opt to use an AI voice instead of a narrator.

This ESPECIALLY hurts long audiobooks which are the bread and butter of GameLit, LitRPG and Epic Fantasy. NO AUTHOR will be willing to throw up a 70 hour audio bundle if it's worth exactly the same as a 3 hour AI audiobook in the pool. Authors will be forced to either switch to AI, cut their books into pieces to capture more of the pool (remember, each individual book counts as part of this new pie) costing the end consumer more, or authors will have give up on Audio entirely.

Now, the question. Why not keep your books out of the AYCL program? Here's yet another kicker: it doesn't matter. Whether you're in the program or not, ACX's new model forces this communism-style split on everyone and as we know, GameLit readers and listeners are heavy users (and for good reason!). In short, they're basically killing large bundles and books with this change.

So, what does this mean for us? Right now, I'm in talks with my audio producer about potentially going wide. Maybe even selling the audio ourselves or finding a different hosting platform. Bundles are our lifeblood and top sellers. I refuse to use AI voices on principle, especially because I personally have gotten to know many narrators over the years.

The reason I am telling you this, is because this hurts EVERYONE, not just the authors and narrators, and the grim reality is that we may be forced to stop producing audiobooks altogether if this doesn't pan out. Big Corporations and Publishers have private deals with ACX so they get to keep more of their pie, unaffected by the changes, so the ones hurt the most are Indie Authors like me, and practically everyone else in our community.

There is currently a class action lawsuit winding its way through the courts, but as we all know, things like this can take years and in the meanwhile, Audible can keep doing as it likes.

I'll be posting updates as I know more. Until then, thank you to everyone whose been a listener or reader. Your support means the world to me.

Have an awesome day and keep being super!