Thanks to Audible's heavy marketing of their “easy return and exchange” feature, readers now treat Audible as a lending library. If exchanged, Audible seizes the commission paid to the author-publisher for the original purchase, and deducts it.Įven though their books were fully listened to and enjoyed, even though they and their narrators and producers were the ones who invested in the book's production, they don't get a dime. They work in tandem with Audible, Amazon's audiobook retail platform, which dominates audiobook sales, owning as much as 90% of the world's audiobook sales in some verticals, according to Cory Doctorow, writing for Publisher's Weekly.Īudible has a no-questions-asked exchange policy, where subscribers can return an audiobook they've purchased and listened to in its entirety, up to 365 days after the original purchase, and select another to replace it. This is a ridiculous scenario, but substitute audiobooks for widgets, and you've got a general idea of what Amazon's Audible and ACX platforms are inflicting on indie authors, and perhaps other publishers, right now.ĪCX is Amazon's audiobook production arm. It makes for a great shopping experience for the customer!” Audible's audacity. “Oh my God, is that what those signs out front are for? The ones that say ‘exchange your widgets at no charge'? Am *I* the one paying for those?!” “Oh, no, we have a no-questions-asked return policy, and some of the customers you sold widgets to last year decided they wanted to exchange theirs for an alternative.
“Half of my sales this week were returned?”
“But my check is less than half of last week's!” “There's no mistake,” says Rita, the lead accountant. So, you stop by Accounting to ask them to correct the mistake. You sell widgets to the public, and for every widget that's sold, you get a commission.įriday arrives, and you glance at your paycheck to discover that it's roughly half what you were expecting. Imagine, for a moment, that you're a salesman. Below ALLi Watchdog John Doppler explains what's going on and why the company's recent “concession” of a seven-day limit on returns misses the point, and is wholly insufficient. There, you'll find breaking news, a summary of the issues, and information on how you can take action to demand a fair deal for rights holders, click here. The Alliance of Independent Authors has launched an AudibleGate Campaign resource to disseminate information about the latest developments in this case.
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