Amazon's Audible Quietly Sabotages Indie Authors While Pretending to Help Them

Amazon's Audible has rolled out changes that devastate independent authors while masquerading as improvements, according to fantasy reviewer Daniel Greene, who received detailed information from publishing industry veteran Robin J. Sullivan.

Greene opened his analysis by clarifying: "I am simply reporting on information that has been given to me by Robin J. Sullivan and cooperated by others within the publishing industry."

Sullivan, who gave Greene permission to share her findings, explained the deceptive nature of Audible's new system: "While the royalty rates are going up 40 to 50 exclusive and 25 to 30 for non-exclusive, the way in which income for a credit is accounted will be much lower than the old royalty program such as the net to authors income will be significantly less."

The result? "The rich will get richer and the poor poorer."

Here's how Amazon's scheme works: Audible created Audible Plus, where subscribers can stream unlimited books from a curated selection alongside their monthly credit purchases. When customers use credits to buy indie books but also stream Plus titles, the revenue gets divided among all consumed content.

Sullivan provided a devastating example: "Under the old program, if a person used a credit card to buy my title, I received my income based on the allocation factor... But I was the only one getting paid for the credit spent. Under the new royalty program, when a premium member buys a credit and they listen to free nonpremium titles, the money they bring in is divided between all titles."

The math is brutal. If an author's $20 book gets purchased with a credit, but the customer streams four other $20 titles, "my royalty price is based off of 15th of what I would have under the old plan."

Sullivan's calculation shows the scam: "Under the old plan, I would get 40% of 13, $5.20. But under the new plan, I would get 50% of $2.60 or $1.30. So even though my royalty is higher, my income is much less."

Greene emphasized the monopolistic nature: "Audible does seem determined to try and shift their platform away from being a credit-based system and instead more of a streaming service."

Amazon buried this change in deliberately confusing language. Their announcement states: "Audible takes a member's plan value plus or premium plus and adds the value of any additional credits used, then divides that value among the titles the member listened to over the course of the month."

Greene called out the deception: "Audible, in my opinion, using rather shady tactics of purposely making something overly convoluted and complicated to appease people who have been angry at them in the past."

Sullivan offered a simple solution Amazon ignored: "This problem would be solved by having two separate pools. One for the premium titles where the allocation is the same that it has always been and one for the AY+ titles."

Greene concluded: "I'm tired, boss. Amongst the storm of seeing massive tech companies steal on a historic level from authors. Seeing this just feels like a kick to the teeth."

What do you think of Amazon's latest attack on independent creators?

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