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When I went to Audible today, I saw that they've got a new Audible Plus service included in the standard membership. Does anything know anything about this from the author/publisher side?
On the contrary, it's very smart for Audible. It could conceivably lead to them driving the competition out of business before they are actually any sort of real competition. It would be bad for indie writers and small publishers, but Audible doesn't actually care about them, they only care about their own bottom line.AlecHutson said:One of the authors I know with connections to Audible asked his rep. The rep said that Audible is packaging poor-selling trad titles and Audible exclusive titles into this unlimited reading program. Seems to me to be a not-smart move on Audible's part, as it's only going to hurt writers and publishers.
Yes, that's true. I also think it's true that alienating / angering the ones that provide you with free content isn't generally in a business's best interest.Rick Partlow said:On the contrary, it's very smart for Audible. It could conceivably lead to them driving the competition out of business before they are actually any sort of real competition. It would be bad for indie writers and small publishers, but Audible doesn't actually care about them, they only care about their own bottom line.
Oh, that's interesting, because my Audible sales have dropped significantly in the past couple of months. I wondered why, but this sounds like it could be a reason.AlecHutson said:One of the authors I know with connections to Audible asked his rep. The rep said that Audible is packaging poor-selling trad titles and Audible exclusive titles into this unlimited reading program. Seems to me to be a not-smart move on Audible's part, as it's only going to hurt writers and publishers. I don't know about anyone else, but I've seen my daily sales fall from 35 or so a day to 20 almost immediately once the program started, and my sales had been very steady for the past 5 months. They choose what goes in, so you can't just apply. I personally this is a pretty bad thing for us independent creators. I've seen a lot of excited chatter in my reader Facebook groups about the program, listeners sharing lists of what they're going to listen to.
You'd think they'd let you know, because surely there must be some sort of different payscale like with KU?GeneDoucette said:Has anyone gotten some kind of invite or notification about their books? How would one know if one's books were included?
eta: actually, I'm thinking every book that's exclusive to Audible is in this program.
I could be wrong. I went in anonymously and searched for books in the plus catalog. It looks like the titles in it are tagged 'FREE WITH PLUS TRIAL'. When I look at my own titles, they say 'FREE WITH 30-DAY TRIAL'.Lydniz said:You'd think they'd let you know, because surely there must be some sort of different payscale like with KU?
This is why, if ever Spotify do go into audiobooks and I have to get involved I will upload my books as separate instalments or chapters. 7c a chapter OK, 7c for a 13 hour audiobook? I don't think so.markpauloleksiw said:Here is the problem for authors...once you get into a subscription type service...you will suffer from dilution. What difference is a "novel" from a podcast or a song? In other words, slowly the royalty rates will diminish and given the cost to make an audiobook, it will beg a lot of questions as to what is the point.
Mark
This is an interesting perspective. Thanks for sharing.ShawnaReads said:When I look around, I don't see a whole lot of books included, and a lot of the ones that are come from dead authors. Not even all Audible Originals are included. It'll be interesting to see over time how this affects people's sales. As a listener, I switched to Plus as an alternative to cancelling entirely, since I have one credit and there's an upcoming book I'm waiting for, and last I checked, Audible doesn't let you keep credits you've already paid for if you cancel without using them. All/most of the books in Plus that I've marked to listen to are ones I didn't have enough interest in to listen to otherwise, and I still likely won't get to them. I'm hoping Plus will end up begin something that has more people coming up to it from "never buys audiobooks" than people coming down to it from "buys all their audiobooks". If you get what I mean.
(From ACX page)KevinH said:It looks like Audible Escape (formerly the Audible Romance Package) is being scrapped - not surprising when one considers that Audible Plus will also include romance. That said, does anyone know if authors participating in Audible Escape are being automatically shifted into the new subscription service? Or are they being released back into the wild, so to speak?