Audible Gate
The Recap
Audiblegate erupted in October 2020, after authors discovered Audible had been deducting returns from author's sales to the tune of up to 50% of their earnings.
Audible’s Great Listener Guarantee allowing a subscriber to return or exchange an audiobook within 365 days, no questions asked.
Accounting of these returns were not clear. x number of sales and x number of returns. All returns were deducted from established sales numbers with no transparency. Once a book was returned, author and narrator royalties were also pulled back, creating negative numbers on the right’s holder’s sales dashboard. Right’s holders had no way to verify why their numbers were going negative or how these returned books were affecting their bottom line.
Susan May Broke the story and created the Facebook group - Fair Deal for Authors and Rights Holders and Narrators. https://www.facebook.com/groups/fairdealwithaudible
By November, #AudibleGate was trending on Social Media and other Author’s Guilds joined the fight and a petition was started.
Fair Deal for Rights Holders & Narrators
https://www.facebook.com/groups/fairdealwithaudible
US Authors Guild (AG)
https://www.authorsguild.org/join/
The UK Society of Authors (SoA)
https://www.societyofauthors.org/About-Us
The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi)
Late November, Audible/ACX issued a statement that they would compensate authors an additional 5% on their December Sales and after January 1st they would stop pulling royalties away from books returned after 7 days.
To clarify. Any books sold after January 1st qualified for the 7 day cutoff on clawing back royalties. Any audiobooks sold prior to that date still could be returned for up to 365 days no questions asked with royalties still being pulled from right’s holders. That means until December 31st 2021 we are still going to see the same type of pullback from sales.
In December, Authors Guild met with Audible’s CEO Bob Carrigan to work on this issue. They presented our petition with over 13k signatures on it. Audible Promised to contact authors before Christmas with an update.
That update did not come.
Another meeting was scheduled for the end of January. This meeting was canceled at the last minute and Audible/ACX issued this statement in an updated on January 20th. In that Update Audible claims to be retooling their reporting system and states.
Starting March 2021 you will be able to see details on returns and return units by title. This update will also be reflected in monthly financial statements.
The also state
As of January 1 they will be paying royalties on any returns made more than 7 days after purchase.
Audible also states
Remember this only counts toward purchases moving forward from Jan 1. This does not include any audiobook sales from December 31st 2020 or earlier. As stated above, those are still going to be able to claw back royalties until 365 days after they were purchased. December 31 2021...
In addition, all ACX Rights holders will have the option to terminate after 90 days of distribution. (so you can pull your contract if need be.)
Effective February 1, ACX rights holders of DIY or Pay for Production titles that have been on sale for 90 days or more can convert their distribution type from exclusive to non- exclusive.
For authors with Royalty Share or Royalty Share Plus deals, you must provide Producer Consent when making this request. Get with your Audio producer or Voice artist.
Where we are at right now.
Orna Ross of ALLi has said
"In cancelling our meeting, Audible / ACX did concede some more changes to their terms and conditions (to date the worst, by far, in the self-publishing sector), most notably a shortening of their exclusivity term, and the end of their notorious seven-year rights lock-in. Both of these conditions were unique to ACX / Audible and made them vulnerable to legal challenges."
The key takeaway here is that none of the concessions made by Audible/ACX have made any real impact to authors, nor have they created any burden or hardship on Audible/ACX. Audible/ACX are not actually giving in at all with their concessions.
Here is what we asked.
Our public letter—which was signed and endorsed by thirteen thousand authors and a wide coalition of international author, narrator, and producer organizations That letter calls on Audible to:
1. provide full and complete accounting of returns made pursuant to this policy since it was first implemented.
2. limit the time period of returns and exchanges that could be deducted from royalty counts from 365 days to a reasonable period, such as 48 hours, and allow only “true returns” (e.g., where less than 25% of the book has been read) to be deducted from royalty accounts;
3. show the total number of unit purchases and returns on the author dashboards, not just the “net sales” already adjusted for any returns; and
4. take action against abuse of the “return and exchange” terms by listeners.
Audible/ACX claims their return terms are within industry standards.
(Credit Susan May for this list) https://www.susanmaywriter.net/single-post/we-re-not-gonna-take-it-audible-s-response-to-audiblegate - AudibleGate 3 Audible/ACX stalls offers bad deal.
No they're not. Let's check:
Amazon Prime Video has a 48 hour/0% watched policy on Prime film returns.
Amazon Digital educational resources is returnable within seven days of purchase for a resource that has not yet been downloaded.
Games, software downloads, and purchases from the Amazon Appstore, the Amazon Digital Music store or the Amazon Video store are not returnable after purchase, unless otherwise specified, but can be returned within 48 hours if a customer hasn't attempted to watch or download it.
Google Play’s audiobook policy is “Except as expressly set out in these policies or as required by applicable law, all sales of audiobooks are final, and no returns, replacements or refunds will be permitted. In South Korea, Google will accept refund requests for purchase cancellations that are made within 7 days of sale, as long as the customer has not started listening to the audiobook.”
It’s clear that Audible/ACX a division of Amazon knows what industry standards are, and they are willfully ignoring them.
About the transparency and accountability.
The new reporting will be visible beginning in March 2021 in the ACX dashboard.
The data will also be reported in Audible’s monthly financial statements starting in March and going forward. The new statements will show returns and exchanges going back to January 1st, but authors will not receive them until March when the new reporting system is up and running.
We do not yet know what this report will look like but will continue to update as we learn more.
One thing they added that was not part of our initial grievances.
Effective February 1, ACX rights holders of DIY or Pay for Production titles that have been on sale for 90 day or more can convert their distribution type from exclusive to non- exclusive.
In addition, all ACX Rights holders will have the option to terminate after 90 days of distribution. (so you can pull your contract if need be.)
For authors with Royalty Share or Royalty Share Plus deals, you must provide Producer Consent when making this request. Get with your Audio producer or Voice artist.
Did we get what we asked for?
Despite the concession that they will, moving forward from January 1st, not claw back author earnings for returns over seven days, they are still sticking with 365 days returns as part of their “Great Listener Guarantee.”
Rights holders will have the option to terminate after 90 days of distribution.
This is nice, but it does not fix the issues we brought to the table, so we cannot stop pushing to get our fair rights, distribution, and payment.
The bottom line: All the authors’ demands “have not been met.”
We have to keep fighting for our rights. Join the group, spread the word, and let's get amazon to treat us with respect.
Fair Deal for Rights Holders & Narrators
https://www.facebook.com/groups/fairdealwithaudibleThere is also some sneaky business going on with
ACX and author payments.
Colleen Cross brought this to light with her article on the Alliance of Independent Authors site.
https://selfpublishingadvice.org/how-audiobook-authors-are-paid-by-audible-acx/ Author Colleen Cross breaks down how Audible/ACX actually pays authors and undercuts royalties.
I won't spoil it for you. Just be sure you are sitting down when you read it.
Spilling Ink the show that takes you behind the book to meet the authors and professionals in the publishing industry. #audiblegate #authortube #indieauthor
AudibleGate
Colleen Cross, Mystery Thriller Author
Colleen Cross writes financial thrillers and white-collar true crime, drawn from her background in forensic accounting and fraud investigation. She is a CPA with CFO/finance executive experience at large multinational corporations. She follows the money to find the truth.
Susan May
Susan May has been an author of dark thrillers for more than a decade. In 2020, she paused her writing career to create a horror story for Audible, entitled Audiblegate. She promises in the end the good guys will triumph. You can discover more about her books and read about the Audiblegate campaign through her blog at
http://www.susanmaywriter.net
Fair Deal for Rights Holders & Narrators
US Authors Guild (AG)
The UK Society of Authors (SoA)
The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi)
https://www.allianceindependentauthors.org/audible-campaign/ - Alliance of Independent Authors
https://www.susanmaywriter.net/single-post/audiblegate-the-incredible-story-of-missing-sales - AudibleGate 1 Author Susan May breaks the story on this issue back in October of 2020
https://www.susanmaywriter.net/single-post/audiblegate-2-the-emperor-s-new-clothes-policy-pot-theory-unicorns-pirates - AudibleGate 2 Author Susan May breaks down Audible/Acx's response to AudibleGate
https://www.susanmaywriter.net/single-post/we-re-not-gonna-take-it-audible-s-response-to-audiblegate - AudibleGate 3 Audible/ACX stalls offers bad deal.
https://selfpublishingadvice.org/how-audiobook-authors-are-paid-by-audible-acx/ Author Colleen Cross breaks down how Audible/ACX actually pays authors and undercuts royalties.
https://selfpublishingadvice.org/self-publishing-news-findaway-voices-reaches-out-to-disgruntled-acx-authors/ Findaway Voices is now reaching out to offer disgruntled ACX authors a better deal.
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Author of realistic fantasies both sexy and killer.