Australian authors, have you heard about Audiblegate?
As I discovered with my own audiobook for Honey Farm Dreaming and in further research for Look – It’s Your Book!, Australian authors currently need to do a few workarounds to get our audiobooks onto Audible. These workarounds mean Australian writers mostly earn lower royalties than our US and UK counterparts on the Audible site. However, ALL authors around the world are affected by Audible’s overall policies. That’s why the The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) – for whom I’m an Ambassador in Australia – has been spreading the word for some time about what is known as ‘Audiblegate’.
Some of the concerns that have been mentioned are that authors, narrators and audiobook producers when dealing with Audible/ACX may experience “unethical treatment of authors with opaque payment systems, hidden returns, onerous contracts and penalties for selling on competing stores … depriving authors of income.”
ALLi is supporting The Equitable Rights Movement (TERM) led by Susan May to mount a legal challenge against Audible’s business practices. If you would like to learn more about how Audible’s operations affect authors, visit www.audiblegate.com and support them with a donation if possible.