Amazon's ACX is a self-serve audiobook production platform: writers spend thousands of dollars to produce audiobooks of their own work. Amazon strongly incentivizes ACX producers to sell exclusively through Audible (which also distributes to Itunes).

1/

If you go exclusive, you get a better split of the proceeds - 40%. That's right: though you bore all production costs and Amazon has no costs associated with selling your audiobook, Amazon still keeps the majority of the revenue from it, even if you grant them exclusivity.

2/

As unfair as that may sound, it gets a LOT worse. As part of its effort to lure customers to Audible, Amazon now grants no-questions-asked returns on audiobooks, and claws back the lost revenue from those returns from the audiobook creators.

https://www.susanmaywriter.net/single-post/audiblegate-the-incredible-story-of-missing-sales

3/

Amazon's return policy is very generous: you can return an audiobook for a full refund for a full year after you buy it. When you finish the book, the Audible app even shows you a "return book" button. Hit it and you get a refund.

4/

But Amazon won't tell its authors how many returns they're getting. The only way to estimate is to sell a book for a month, take it out of circulation the next month, and see how far below zero the book's net sales are in a month when it isn't even for sale.

5/

If you sold 10 copies in April, take the book off the market, and "sell" -5 copies in May, your returns are probably 50%.

This is the system creators have bootstrapped because Amazon, the world's most aggressive retail data-collector, somehow can't provide this number.

6/

These authors spend thousands of dollars though an Amazon self-publishing platform, then the company conspires with unscrupulous readers to confiscate their payments, making the system more attractive off the backs of creators.

7/

And here's the sting in the tail: if you opt for "Amazon exclusive," you are locked in for SEVEN YEARS. Amazon silently made the switch to "no hassle returns" and clawed back half its creators' money, with no chance to opt out.

8/

Amazon gets to change its deal with creators when it wants to, but the creators don't get to change their deal with Amazon. For seven years after they spend thousands to produce their own audiobooks, they are locked to Amazon, regardless of Amazon's policy changes.

9/

Seven.

Years.

Audible controls 90% of the audiobook market.

Image:
Paris 16 (modified)
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CC BY-SA
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Dmitry Baranovskiy (modified)
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