The Amazon-owned digital audiobooks site Audible.com is launching a new program, “Audible Author Services,” that pays audiobook authors $1 per sale through Audible.com, Audible.co.uk, and iTunes, out of a $20 million fund. The audiobook publishers do not receive any of the funds.To sign up, authors must make their titles available as audiobooks through Audible.com. (Audible encourages them to do this via ACX, the audiobook rights marketplace it launched last year.) Once they enroll their books in the program, Audible says, they will:
Authors get an “honorarium,” publishers get nothing
- Receive an honorarium of $1 per unit sold at Audible.com, Audible.co.uk, and iTunes, and increase awareness of their book in audio format; [LHO note: Downloads via subscriptions count as sales]
- Obtain samples and links from Audible for use in social media, blogs, or on their websites – wherever they communicate most easily with their fans – as part of our “quick start” audio awareness plan;
- Gain direct interaction with Audible marketing and merchandising teams; and
- Obtain a free copy of their audiobook from Audible.
Significantly, the audiobooks’ publishers are cut out of the deal — the $1 per unit payment is an “honorarium,” “a direct payment from us to you, a way for us to reward you for promoting your work. Sharing the payment with your agent is at your discretion.” Audible continues to pay regular royalties on each audiobook sold.
While Audible encourages authors to market their audiobooks, they can get the $1/sale payment without doing any extra marketing at all. The authors get $1 whether the audiobook is sold outright or downloaded as part of a monthly or annual subscription.
The fund runs through December 31, 2012. After that, “If you want the program to continue in 2013, please help us by signing up and raising awareness of your audiobooks.”
“People buy a Neil Gaiman, not a HarperCollins or a Simon & Schuster”
Full piece here.
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