How Amazon Killed Authors Profits on Audio Books
Jeff Bezos is one of the wealthiest people in the world. And for good reason: Amazon provides a fantastic service that is used by hundreds of millions of people each month. I use it all the time. Amazon also broke the barrier for Authors to have their books published and available directly to the consumer, bypassing the gatekeepers (publishers) that impeded them doing so.
I know.
As an author I have used them to publish my books, and I started a company, Intellect Publishing, LLC, that has now published over 200 books.
The playing field has leveled. However…
When it comes to audio books, I have discovered that Amazon has devised a system wherein it is almost impossible (and financially punitive) for readers to purchase an audio book directly from the author. Let me explain.
I created an audio book for my novel, Return to Treasure Island. I hired a voice actor (who spoke ‘piratease’), and after a month of recording and editing, was finally able to load the book onto ACX to become an audio book available on Amazon.
I hired a PR firm and also engaged Cumulus Media Services (CMS) to create ads on Amazon to direct people to my Amazon page to purchase. I sat back and waited for results.
I checked ACX for sales daily and was a bit disappointed – no sales at all. CMS said that they were getting a great response and sent me charts that indeed did show the ads were getting almost a five-percent click through rate.
Still, I checked the ACX page and no sales. Something was not right.
CMS then suggested we send the traffic to my website (www.R2TI.com) and add a code where they could track what people would do once they arrived.
Fine, I thought. Maybe this will be a better way to do it rather than sending them simply to my sales page on Amazon. We added the code and waited.
I checked the ACX sales report and only one sale. Hmmm, I thought, Something really is not right.
My sales rep for CMS called up and said he tried to buy an Audio book and he was not sure if he did or not. What? Since it did not show up in my sales, I decided to check it myself.
And that is when I found out what Amazon was doing. They were offering the purchaser the opportunity to try audiobooks for free for three months – ALL AUDIOBOOKS .
When I went to my sales page, I found this:
They are offering my book. And ALL audiobooks,for free if they sign up for a free three month trial. Or you can pay $21.83 to purchase only mine, which, by the way, is way down at the bottom of choices.
Hmmm… what do you think everyone who we sent to the Amazon site chose? I can tell you, since no one bought the book directly.
I received another graph from CMS that showed we generated a five percent click through rate to my site.
A zoom call followed with their technical rep and my sales rep,wherein they finally admitted that there was probably no way people would purchase my book individually when they (the consumer) had access to ALL audiobooks for free for three months.
But they said they still brought awareness to me as an author.
Hmmm.
Much like Spotify did to musicians, Amazon has done to authors. The big difference is this: musicians can load their own music on their website, and if people want to purchase it, they can – and listen to it as often as they want.
With audiobooks, very rarely will anyone ‘listen’ to an audio book more than once. So, the idea of even loading it on their website does not make economic sense, especially when you also get access to hundreds of thousands of audiobooks for zero upfront money.
This is how Amazon has killed the audiobook market for authors (as far as making any money from them). And it gets worse. They are now offering a beta program (of which I am a participant) wherein you can translate, through Amazon’s AI program, your audiobook for free. The idea being it removes the cost for the author to create one (I spent over $6,000.00 for mine to be produced). And guess what the end result will be for the author?
The same as me. Zero Sales. No income.
And remember when I mentioned earlier that my sales rep at CMS thought they bought the book? They had not purchased Return to Treasure Island. Turns out they signed up for the free three-month trial. Even they did not know they were not buying the book.
Technology has been a godsend in many areas of our lives. Unfortunately, it is also wreaking havoc in many industries. Authors audiobooks are one such case.
Great for the consumer, more profits for Amazon, terrible for the author.
Written by:
John O’Melveny Woods
P.S.
Maybe ‘they’, whoever ‘they’ are, are listening to me. I just received this in my email. Sort of like rubbing salt on the wound.
