Brandon Sanderson did an AMA here you might want to take a look :) Here's a link to all of our upcoming AMAs

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He's got good points. As an author, I'm constantly irritated with how much Audible takes for what is, essentially, hosting services. The production costs for audio mean that the payback for any project is likely to be slow, or possibly not happen at all if the book doesn't take off. And since Audible, in concert with Amazon, controls who sees what books on any search via their algos, it's largely pay to play.

I've been lucky, and I'll be the first to admit it, but luck doesn't mean the game is fair for everyone who sits down at the table. I'd like that game to be fair for everyone.

Platform capitalism is a particularly insidious way many tech companies have completely restructured certain markets. It is good that Sanderson is standing up to Amazon who are arguably the worst offender, but he is doing so by getting into bed with another company who should also be treated with extreme skepticism. Ultimately, I don't foresee this really having any sort of knock on benefit for other authors, but I would be open to hearing from small-time authors' opinions on that front. It's one thing for a superstar like Sanderson to take his following elsewhere, but for people who don't have a built in fandom, there aren't a lot of options, and they don't individually have a lot of power to fight back. I.e. they either put up with Audible's extortion, or risk having even less of a potential audience.

Fight back? No one is fighting anyone in the first place. It’s not extortion.

As evidenced by Sanderson's actions, there is indeed a desire to fight for a greater share of the revenues from audiobook sales to be returned to the people that create them rather than the platform that distributes them. I don't see how you could come away with any other impression here.

You’re starting with a false premise: “returned.” They weren’t theirs to begin with. They are entering into voluntary agreements and agreeing to terms and conditions including compensation.

Lol ok I'm not gonna bother arguing with your landlord brain and defense of rentierism. Well done sticking up for corporations who do nothing but act as parasites siphoning value from the work of others.

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There are anti-monopoly laws for a reason. Audible (Amazon) have complete market dominance.

Currently, if a writer wants to have a non-exclusive contract with Audible, Amazon takes 80% of the profit. If they give Audible exclusive rights, Amazon takes 60%. All of the audiobook production is organised and paid for on the writer's side. Audible is just a digital shelf.

Royalty rates in similar industries are nowhere near this high, nor did they used to be in audiobooks. How is this not extortion? Should we wait until Amazon starts taking 90 percent? Is that when it would get too high for you? Another 10 percent?

It's disgusting business practice, and completely undermines accessibility to the arts. Even an author as big and powerful as Sanderson can't fight it. There are no other platforms to turn to.

Market dominance =/= monopoly. Monopolies are government creations. There’s nothing disgusting about it; no one is forcing people into these contracts.

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Ad hom

Loved the Going Dark series. I wasn’t ready to leave the Silo behind, so I was incredibly happy when I discovered this series.

> How is this not extortion?

Because it's voluntary. No one is stopping anyone from producing their own audiobook and publishing/selling it on their own terms.

If you want to benefit from Audible's hosting, distribution, and advertising (because yes, Audible puts a significant effort into advertising books to readers with things like "recommended for you" and "related to this title" type programs, among other things), among other benefits of being part of their library, then they're gonna take a cut. Since they own the platform, they get to dictate what the cut is. If you don't like it, you're free to take your product elsewhere. No one is forcing anyone to do business with anyone.

Keep this same energy when your groceries go up by 60%

Publishing, as an industry, has never been more lucrative than it is currently, and writers have never been paid less.

Amazon having total market dominance, and taking 80% of royalties (despite contributing nothing to the production process) is obscene.

Amazon famously use books as 'loss leaders' to support their other products/advertising. They can afford to undersell every other retailer, and lose money on books, because they have a trillion-dollar company backing them. They do not care if the author makes no money. They are the only option, and they are a terrible option.

Your arguments in favour of Audible are only demonstrating ignorance on your part. You do not understand what is happening to the publishing industry at wide.

Authors deserve a living wage.

Wow...thank you so much!

> Keep this same energy when your groceries go up by 60%

This is more likely to happen from inflation (i.e Government printing too much money) than from every grocery store in the region jacking up their prices simultaneously.

And if they do, I can decide to grow my own veggies and hunt my own meat. Or if I don't want to do that, I can call up a farmer nearby and trade with them directly. No one is forcing me to do business with any grocer.

> Amazon having total market dominance, and taking 80% of royalties (despite contributing nothing to the production process) is obscene.

Yeah, that is ridiculous. That's a pretty big cut. Seems like they've got a pretty solid platform if they can manage to command such a sizeable cut.

> Amazon famously use books as 'loss leaders' to support their other products/advertising.

Then it should be easy to sell your book on your own site for half the price of what Audible would charge. You'd eat their lunch by having dramatically lower prices, and you'd still be making more money than working with them, presuming the same or similar volume of sales.

> They are the only option, and they are a terrible option.

That's just not true. Anyone can start up a squarespace website and sell their books/audiobooks online for dirt cheap. There's like a million other "run your own website with no technical knowledge" businesses out there, too. No one is making anyone do business with Audible, and authors are free to do business on their own terms if they so choose.

As it stands, I'm guessing authors see it as more valuable to pay Audible for their services than to do their own sales because the incredible ability of Audible to drive sales, even if they only keep 20-40%. This is evidenced by the fact that Audible has a massive library of audiobooks from authors making exactly that decision.

You’re most welcome! I recommend the series whenever the Wool series comes up.