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Why none of my books are available on Audible

doctorow.medium.com

11–20 of 91 posts

Re: Why none of my books are available on Audible

#11

> Scammers claiming to have the rights to my books commission narrators to record them on the cheap, with the promise of a royalty split when they are live. Inexperienced narrators, excited at the prospect of recording a major book by a bestselling author, put long, grueling hours into recording them. Then the book goes live, and I discover it, and have it taken down. The scammer disappears with the profits from the…

99% of scams work because the scammee didn’t do due diligence. “Why wouldn’t you check property records to see if the person renting you that sweet apartment actually owns it?” Sounds like common sense yet people fall for this scam all the time.

Re: Why none of my books are available on Audible

#12

> Scammers claiming to have the rights to my books commission narrators to record them on the cheap, with the promise of a royalty split when they are live. Inexperienced narrators, excited at the prospect of recording a major book by a bestselling author, put long, grueling hours into recording them. Then the book goes live, and I discover it, and have it taken down. The scammer disappears with the profits from the…

99% of scams work because the scammee didn’t do due diligence. “Why wouldn’t you check property records to see if the person renting you that sweet apartment actually owns it?” Sounds like common sense yet people fall for this scam all the time.

Because most people do check and a scam only occurs if one person doesn’t.

Re: Why none of my books are available on Audible

#14
“ My agent tells me that if I’d been willing to set aside my ethics and allow Audible to slap DRM on my books, I’d have made enough money to pay off my mortgage and save enough to pay for my kid’s entire college education. That’s a price I’m willing to pay.”

I have to be honest and say… I think I would be very frustrated with my spouse if this principle cost us so much potential financial freedom in other parts of our lives.

That’s not to say they shouldn’t do this. That would just be hard for me to swallow!

Re: Why none of my books are available on Audible

#15
post #14

“ My agent tells me that if I’d been willing to set aside my ethics and allow Audible to slap DRM on my books, I’d have made enough money to pay off my mortgage and save enough to pay for my kid’s entire college education. That’s a price I’m willing to pay.” I have to be honest and say… I think I would be very frustrated with my spouse if this principle cost us so much potential financial freedom in other parts of ou…

>I think I would be very frustrated with my spouse if this principle cost us so much potential financial freedom in other parts of our lives.

This mindset is a driving force behind our corrupt politics: sacrificing morals for money.

Re: Why none of my books are available on Audible

#16

I missed the call to action. Is there an alternative store the author recommends? A policy cure? Or is this a pure problem statement? (Which is fine.)

> Is there an alternative store the author recommends?

They mention "Google Books, or Libro.fm, or Downpour" or having your own storefront, but it's mainly a problem statement.

> A policy cure?

Removing Section 1201 from the DMCA?

Re: Why none of my books are available on Audible

#18

I very much agree with him regarding DRM, and I understand why it puts him off launching audiobooks on Audible. Still, it is worth commenting that there are trivial ways to remove DRM from Audible files. I myself do it to my own collection, partly out of "lockout prevention", and partly so that I can listen to the books using apps that I find infinitely more covenient and feature rich than Audible's own (shout-out to…

This is why I don’t mind buying TV Shows on iTunes. What I ultimately want is a DRM Free file, and I know how to losslessly strip DRM from iTunes media, so whatever, I’ll go ahead and buy whatever I want to watch.

The difference with audiobooks, though, is there are several audiobook retailers that are natively DRM Free, such as downpour and libro.fm. Why buy from the DRM’d vendor, who could increase their protection at any time, when you have DRM-Free options you could be giving your money to instead?

Re: Why none of my books are available on Audible

#19

I missed the call to action. Is there an alternative store the author recommends? A policy cure? Or is this a pure problem statement? (Which is fine.)

>Not surprisingly, a lot of people assume that if an Audible search for an author or book comes up empty, that means there is no audiobook available. They don’t think of searching for the book on Google Books, or Libro.fm, or Downpour. They never think to check to see whether the author maintains their own storefront, as I do, where you can get all their ebooks and audiobooks without DRM.
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