Audible has launched a new subscription service named Audible Plus.
Audible Plus appears to be the same business model as the Romance Package - which, due to a lot of bad press, was later re-framed as Audible Escape. While this new service is great for consumers who like to binge audiobooks it is terrible for authors, narrators, and the audiobook industry.
The first subscription service lauded by Audible in late 2017 was the Romance Package. Listeners were offered unlimited audiobooks within the package for a small monthly subscription. And of course, listeners loved it and consumed thousands of hours of audio. However, rights holders and narrators saw their income from audiobooks flat-line. There were two main reasons for this: Firstly, listeners returned audiobooks they had previously purchased when they discovered they were 'free' with the subscription. Rights holders saw mass returns of audiobooks and had those royalties clawed back. Secondly, when the first of the quarterly royalty reports was released, rights holders learned they earned a pitiful few cents per listen. It was clear to me that the service was not sustainable for rights holders in the long-run, and so I fought to get Audible to release rights holders from the 7-year contract binding us to that subscription package, which they did in 2018.
Audible profited from the subscription model and so, even though rights holders hate the subscription services as it stands, Audible decided that during a pandemic - when their sister site ACX is barely functioning - it was a great time to roll out Audible Plus. The only difference with the Audible Plus service is that it covers a wider variety of genres when Audible Escape only covers Romance. It doesn't take much imagination to see we will find the same issues that we had when the Romance Package was rolled out in late 2017- Audible will make a profit, publishers will get monetary/marketing incentives to add content, listeners will return books they find in the package and have credits refunded, and authors/ narrators will be paid a few cents in royalties per listen.
Audible Plus currently for US listeners, and curated content can be added by publishers only, but no doubt it will be rolled-out for indies who produce audiobooks via ACX.
AUTHORS BEWARE: Due to sketchy (but not necessarily illegal) wording on audiobook publishing contracts, publishers can add audiobooks to 'subscription services' without having to inform the author or renegotiate royalties. Authors who have audiobooks with Tantor, Audible Studios, Blackstone Audio, and other audio-centric publishers could get a nasty shock and find their audiobooks in Audible Plus / Audible Escape subscription services without notification and see their incomes from audiobooks shrink.
If you are about to sign a contract with an audiobook publisher make sure that you have any clause about 'distribution to subscription services' removed or reworded. You should negotiate royalties for subscription services, and require the publisher to list the retail services they will distribute the audiobooks to so that you know what to expect before you sign.
The concerns are not only about the possibility of having audiobooks added to a subscription service without notification or fair payment, but also that in future, subscription programs like Audible Plus and Audible Escape will devalue audiobooks and dumb down listeners. Kindle Unlimited has proven that consumers like getting things for free or by paying a small subscription fee. But the stakes are higher with audiobooks. Audiobooks are more expensive to produce, and if you cannot afford to pay for an audiobook production upfront and keep control of where it is sold, it will be harder for publishers and Indie authors to convince narrators to risk their time and money on a Royalty Share contract. There is nothing in the RS contract to prevent the rights holder from adding an RS title to an Audible subscription service, and many authors and narrators have found their content in Audible Escape without permission. In this situation, the lack of fair payment makes it impossible for a narrator to make back their production costs, and without specific changes to the ACX contract in the narrator's favor, RS isn't going to be worth the risk.
Devaluing audiobooks by feeding consumers free/ low-cost content isn't sustainable and it is damaging to the audiobook industry and the incomes of those who work within it. I will watch with interest as this situation unfolds, but one thing I do know for sure is that I won't be fooled again and I will not enroll my titles in the new subscription service!