People who know me, know that I am and always shall be against monopolies. In the publishing world, they're bad for authors, they're bad for readers, they're bad for everyone. Except the monopolist.
It's not a secret that Amazon holds the majority of the publishing digital market in many countries of the world. Its dominant position forces many minor, independent authors to accept conditions they normally wouldn't. Kindle Unlimited limitations to independent authors like myself are an example. If a publishing company published famous titles through KU, they can also publish on all other storefronts. For indie authors instead there's an exclusivity clause. Authors who are enrolled in KU cannot publish that same story through other retailers. This is one reason you'll never find my stories on KU. Never, ever.
In the last few months, some independent authors discovered shady practises at Audible, the Amazon branch that distributes audiobooks.
Here's the background story:
In October 2020, a reporting error on the Amazon’s audiobook self-publishing platform ACX revealed some worrying indications about how Amazon Audible’s “easy exchange and return” program was funded. Under this program, audiobook listeners are encouraged to swap out a book once they’ve listened to it, at no cost. The glitch seemed to show that Audible had been secretly deducting the costs of this “returns” scheme from rights holders’ share of the revenue, not their own.
If a book was “returned”, Audible deducted the money they had originally paid to the author, publisher or narrator–even though the listener had fully consumed and enjoyed the book.
The glitch also revealed how lack of transparency and opaque accounting practices made it all but impossible for an individual author to get a picture of how Audible / ACX calculated their income. On realising the potential extent of rights holder losses, an Australian indie author, Susan May, founded a Facebook group Fair Deal for Rights Holders and Narrators. The group connected audiobook authors and narrators together, and began to gather information and evidence about the various anomalies they were witnessing.
In sharing the replies they were receiving from Audible, a disturbing pattern quickly emerged, both in accounting practices and communications with rights holders. A smaller group of dedicated volunteers, bringing various skills that fit just right for the campaign needs, began to dig deeper, and to reach out to the wider author community, narrators and producers, and outside interested parties.
Around this time, the group came to ALLi’s attention. Disturbed by the evidence, we changed ACX’s rating from “Recommended” to “Pending” while our watchdog desk carried out further research. On investigation, ACX’s grading was further downgraded to “Caution” and and narrators in their campaign to win a fair deal from Audible. (See Watchdog John Doppler’s explanatory blog post here). ALLi signed up to support the work of these dedicated authors in a variety of ways–as did a number of other author organizations around the world, and thousands of authors and other rights holders.
In December 2020, a public letter hosted by the US Authors’ Guild was endorsed by 13,000+ authors, and a wide coalition of international author, narrator, and producer organizations. This led to discussions between Audible and the Authors’ Guild, the Society of Authors UK, and ALLi, pushing for more transparent, fair, and equitable terms.
I don't do audiobooks—they're too expensive to produce for my budget, at the moment—but this is too big a mess to ignore, especially for someone like me who is allergic to monopolists.
Don't get me wrong, I owe a lot to Amazon. It's thanks to Amazon that twenty years ago I was able to order English used books from the other side of the pond at cheaper prices than everything I had available here in Rome at the time. English book shops were sparse and the variety of books offered very, very limited. So, if I was able to keep reading in English for all these years it's thanks to Amazon.
It's also thanks to Amazon that I approached the publishing world as an independent author. But this doesn't mean I can let everything they do pass. Consumers aren't a commodity, and neither are authors.
If you want to learn more about this fight for authors and narrators and listeners using the Audible app, go here: https://selfpublishingadvice.org/audiblegate-fundraising I will be funding them as soon as my next pay-check comes in, by the end of the month. Will you? Any amount will help, even a dollar. Donate here: https://donorbox.org/audiblegate-legal-fund
If you can't help, please help spread the word by sharing the links.
And now let's move to more light entertainment.
The first sci-fi adventure of this week is a novella by acclaimed author Eric Michael Craig.
On the Run and Betrayed Kylla Torrance leads a mission to establish a sanctuary where genetically engineered Augments can live in peace, beyond the reach of the Shan Takhu Institute. She knows the truth about the Institute’s ominous plans to control the ancient alien technologies left behind in the Solar System, and that only engineered humans can fully access their potential. People like her. And her team. When someone on the Agamemnon sells her out to pirates, Kylla’s plans spin into chaos. Worse yet, a telepathic slave hunter seeks to crush the threat she represents to the Institute’s hold on power. With the help of a mutinous officer, Kylla has one chance to give her people hope for a future, but to succeed they must disappear into the deep. Grab this exciting Wings of Earth standalone novella here!
Four hundred and thirty thousand years ago, the first Nephilim came to Earth in search of gold. After a perilous journey, the Stargazer, the Nephilim flagship, lands on the alien world. First contact with what is thought to be an intelligent creature doesn't go well. A decision to burn the surrounding grass, enrages the creatures, a large pack of dire wolves. Now, the Nephilim are being hunted, not for food, for revenge. Wolves are not the only hostile creatures they will face. There are water dragons, sabretooth tigers, deadly vipers, and more. This is the story of their struggle to survive and create the first city on Earth, Eridu.
Enjoy this space opera by sci-fi author Jay Toney here.
A dying planet. A mythical new world.
Miranda struggles through each day in the Trash Lands, scraping for food and water, wishing she could blend into the sea of ash. The best part of her day is working a meaningless job in a place where people pretend she doesn't exist. Dismayed to learn her mother was right, Earth will get sucked into a black hole, Miranda must trust in skills she never knew she had to get to a place she refused to believe existed. But when they learn the black hole is no natural phenomenon, Miranda can't turn her back on the suffering of Earth, and saving it could cost more than she ever knew.
Get your copy of thisdystopian adventure by Kristen Illarmo here.