Audible Changes (aka "free audiobooks")

It's rare that I ever have anything to say about audiobooks, let alone actual news that isn't a release. But there's change afoot, and publishing with Podium means it affects me earlier than most.

For those who don't want to read a big spiel, here's the short version:

• Audible is expanding their all-you-can-listen program (Audible Plus)

• Demon's Throne 1 and Neural Wraith 1 are now on Audible Plus. So you can listen to them for $5 a month, or free if you already have a full membership but never wanted to spend a credit.

• Podium is adding a bunch of audiobooks, although I believe they're focusing on Book 1s (e.g. try before you buy)

• Payouts will be much lower. Expect a lot of grumbling, but this is kind of a race to the bottom, and a question of how much will be allowed into Audible Plus.

• Self-published authors and other publishers can (and probably will, imo) follow suit now that the program has been expanded.

• Everyone has been expecting Audible to expand their all-you-can-listen program for many years, so this isn't that big of a surprise. If it grows in momentum, it may cause a hit in earnings to authors that focus on audio.

Now for the long version.

Around the middle of last year, Brandon Sanderson made a big post about how he'd convinced Audible to make improvements to its publishing terms. In November, Audible began offering self-published authors the ability to join a beta program for these improvements. They're probably rolling out for everyone soon-ish.

The improvements include a small improvement to royalty rates (50% for exclusive and 30% for non-exclusive, compared to 40% and 25% respectively), access to a bunch of formerly publisher-exclusive tools on the platform, and the ability to nominate your titles for Audible Plus. The last one is going to be the big change.

Audible Plus is Audible's "all you can eat" service, much like Kindle Unlimited. Until now, it's been extremely limited and actually pays really well. It's included in premium credit plans as well as a much cheaper Plus-only plan that costs US$5 a month.

The change is that Audible is now letting way more books into the Plus catalog, but also paying them proportionally to listen time. The exact specifics are unknown, but it'll work like basically every other premium plan on the internet (Kindle Unlimited, Youtube Premium etc). If somebody listens to 10 audiobooks, you'll get paid 10% of their subscription (minus Audible's share, minus the publisher's share).

This is a massive decrease in the audiobook payout compared to a credit. Depending on the method used, payouts vary from ~$2 (Whispersync) to as high as $6 (30+ hour audiobooks, but don't quote me on that). The normal payouts will rise with the royalty increase, too. Audible Plus is unlikely to pay very much, given it's included for free in regular memberships and costs far less than KU. 50c a listen might be on the high-end for all we know.

Podium has moved first, due to its publishing relationship with Audible, and is putting a lot of Book 1s into Plus. Their strategy appears to be "try before you buy" rather than to slap every book there and tank earnings. I've already seen some... questionable talk from other authors suggesting Podium are sabotaging authors here (as if they would destroy their own earnings lmao), and I imagine there'll be more due to the fact there are competing publishers (many author-run) in progfantasy, litrpg, and harem.

Imo, if everyone can start entering Audible Plus once the changes are rolled out in full, this will be something of a race to the bottom and others will follow suit. It depends on how much curation Audible still applies. This feels like a test for a true Audible Unlimited subscription, as the pricing for Audible Plus can't support audiobooks (I'm not sure a non-credit system ever can).

If it does get big, expect some apocalyptic talk as audiobooks are a huge revenue source for some of the bigger authors, especially in harem. They're not that big for me, although I was worried when I heard the rumors about this.

As a listener, you'll have access to tons more books on Audible Plus. Obviously, if you can, buying a book with a credit is the best option (and you keep the audiobook when it leaves the Plus catalog), but Audible royalties aren't great, so I've always felt that any money you spend on audiobooks are best spent on Patreon or elsewhere. This has played a major role in why nobody (smart) encourages you to spend credits on Audible, over using Whispersync or avoiding sales in the past.

Time will tell how much this actually matters. Audible has always moved extremely slower.

And who knows. Maybe the new changes to their publishing payouts and increased transparency means they won't worry about "taxes" in 99% of the world, and I'll have the ability to self-publish audiobooks from Australia (you can only self-publish audiobooks in the US, Canada, Ireland, and the UK for nebulous tax compliance reasons). A man can dream about being less reliant on publishers.