Today, we’re revisiting a topic we discussed almost a year ago: Brandon Sanderson vs. Audible. The internet is buzzing with news that Brandon Sanderson, a favorite among epic fantasy readers, has negotiated better terms with Audible. But is it true? If you haven’t been following Sanderson’s activities, he recently launched a highly successful Kickstarter. Alongside it, he updated his blog, revealing that he has been in discussions with Audible since last year. This was when he made the intriguing decision not to release his new titles, which he had kickstarted, on Audible.
At the time, I released a video discussing how, although this move seemed designed to benefit the industry as a whole, it wasn’t as altruistic as it appeared. I still hold this opinion. I believe it’s possible to help ourselves and others simultaneously, which is what I think Brandon was doing. I also think he was slightly spinning the story to minimize backlash from his community, who had undoubtedly expected all the stories to be available on Audible. For more details on this, you can always revisit that video.
The update is that Sanderson has reportedly been negotiating with Audible for the past year, aiming to find a compromise that would return his books to the platform while also securing better royalties and terms for indie authors and small publishers.
Sanderson is absolutely correct in stating that Audible is problematic. It’s fantastic in many ways, as it’s a massive platform where you can sell audiobooks, and many authors earn the majority of their income from audiobooks. However, it’s also problematic because it lacks a competitor. This allows Audible to exploit everyone, not just the audiobook creator but also the customer.
There are other issues as well. Authors can hardly extract any sales data from Audible to understand how their sales are distributed. This is particularly true if their titles are split between the Audible Plus program and others. Furthermore, the royalty rates you can get on Audible are, at best, poor. A 40% royalty is shockingly low, and it only gets worse.
So, what did Brandon Sanderson and his team manage to persuade Audible to do? The news seems promising, at least on the surface. The first thing he mentions is a new minimum royalty payment structure. This sounds great, but the reality is that Audible can maintain their maximum royalty at 40% and increase the minimum royalty from the current 15% to 25% or 35%, or even fix it at 40%. There’s no promise of increased royalties unless you’re at the very low end of the royalty rate. In that case, it’s excellent because 40% is much better than 15%. However, most authors I know are already at 40% because they’re Audible exclusive.
The lower royalty rates are for those who go wide. If you’re Audible exclusive, meaning you only publish your audiobooks through Audible, you’re already at 40%. Nowhere in the article does it state that Audible will increase this amount. I could be wrong, and they might increase the maximum royalty as well. But based on the careful wording in the blog, I don’t think that’s going to happen.
So, if there’s no actual increase in royalties for the majority of authors or small publishers, what are we getting? The next two things are pretty cool. Sales data from Audible is terrible. But if we believe Sanderson, and I think we should, we’re going to get better sales data that allows us to differentiate what is being sold through the Audible Plus program and what is not. This is fantastic. Not only does it allow us to better understand where our royalties are coming from, but it also provides us with data on whether we should be putting titles in the Audible Plus program in the first place.
Audible Plus is a program that allows someone to sign up and read a variety of different titles for free. Audible pays a lump sum to the author when they put the book in the program initially, and then keeps all the royalties from associated sales. Typically, the term lasts for two years, after which Audible decides whether they want to renew or not. Being able to see how many of our sales are through Audible Plus versus how many are through direct purchase with credits is a big deal. If that’s what we’re getting, it’s a huge win.
The third significant change is that Audible will move to a monthly payment structure instead of a quarterly one. I suspect this will mirror what Kindle already does, which is fantastic. Getting paid every month allows authors to better track and project their sales, which is invaluable.
With all of this, there’s a lot to be hopeful for. However, I want to point something out. In my previous video almost a year ago, I mentioned that Sanderson would keep his titles off Amazon for a year, making them exclusive through other platforms. After that year, he would return them to Audible and reap all the benefits he would have initially received, plus the benefits of whatever he was paid to go exclusive. Sanderson is a big enough author to do that. According to this blog post, that’s precisely what he’s doing.
While this whole thing is framed as Sanderson fighting for indie authors and the little guy, which I believe he is doing and is genuinely interested in doing, his position as an industry giant has allowed him to do this without sacrificing anything on the back end. In fact, he’s managed to do it and earn more money than he would have otherwise.
Sanderson claimed that this whole fight was about royalties and how Audible isn’t paying creators enough for their work considering what they deliver. Yet, he’s returning to Audible without any actual change in the top end of the royalty structure. Who does that benefit? It certainly benefits Audible. It’s good press for both Sanderson, who has positioned himself as a champion of the small guy, and for Audible, who has shown that they can adapt and make positive changes for the community. But has anything really changed?
All Audible is doing is updating their systems to match what KDP already does. They’re both Amazon. They should have been doing this already. This isn’t groundbreaking; we’re just starting to get to where we should have been from the start. If the top end of royalties doesn’t actually increase, then what has all of this achieved? Besides good press and putting a lot of money in Sanderson’s pocket, which I don’t begrudge him.
I want to be clear. I think that Sanderson and his team are smart. They are savvy. They know what they’re doing. They understand how to spin these stories to generate the maximum amount of goodwill. And that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with it. But I do want to bring some clarity and perspective to this issue. This isn’t a universally good move for indie creators.
I’ve already mentioned that Sanderson is not an indie creator. He has moved beyond that into a publishing conglomerate. Although his Everyman brand is fantastic and we could all learn something from it, these moves weren’t made just because he wanted to support the community. And that’s okay.
Hopefully, these changes will pave the way for more changes, better changes, and higher maximum royalty rates in the future. But for now, I wouldn’t hold your breath. There’s nothing in this blog post that leads me to believe that we’ll see Audible raising its maximum royalties. But I could be wrong. I hope I am.
YouTube Video Link: https://youtu.be/a4A5_9eC4mY
Thanks for reading and watching.
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