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Audiblegate

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Re: Audiblegate

#81

Post by riffraff »

phs318u wrote: post #55

I don't doubt that Amazon's practices are shady. Creating obscure and complex pricing plans out of seemingly straightforward fees has become something of an art-form on AWS. Who here has not been hit with an unexpected charge? What I honestly find hard to believe though, is the popularity of audio-books. How do you all focus on the material if you're doing other things? Or am I mistakenly assuming the mode of consump…

I listen to them during walks and commute, or while cooking. I live with the fact that I may miss some bits because of lack of focus.

It's not so much lack of time to read as much as enjoying a book-like experience while doing other things: I also read normal books.

It's also worth saying that some audio productions are not just dronish narration. Multiple voices actors, effects, music etc make for a different experience than the book itself. E.g. the "Sandman" audio production on audible is pretty great (although I hate the voice of Death).

Re: Audiblegate

#82

Post by vasachi »

falcolas wrote: post #58
csours wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like the marketing is misrepresenting the contract - which consumers have some protections against, but I'm not sure how many similar protections exist for what are supposed to be sophisticated counter-parties.

ACX producer here. You get as much say in the contract as you do the average EULA. If you want to use Audible without a publisher to negotiate on your behalf, you get a 40% royalty rate, but not always (hence the complicated math comments). Some purchases are worth nothing (literally invoiced at a 0% royalty rate) to the authors/producers.

Why are they 0%?

Re: Audiblegate

#83

Post by banku_brougham »

lotophage wrote: post #36
ALittleLight wrote: post #27

I worked on a tool at Amazon once that incorrectly calculated royalties, not because Amazon was greedily trying to steal from publishers, but just because of general incompetence (or, lack of sufficient competence maybe). Basically, of the people who wrote the tool, tested the tool, and used the tool, none of them knew exactly how royalties should be calculated and none of them could tell whether or not they were bei…

The nature of these kinds of errors is that when the error favors Amazon (or whatever company), it's "keep the lights on" mode. If it's the company losing money then alarm bells ring, and it's "all hands on deck" to fix the issue.

OP clarified the opposite here. As former amazon retail I can confirm we commonly lost money to vendors, sellers, and customers. Funny example was prime day promo fat fingered, with several expensive lenses shipped for $99.

Re: Audiblegate

#85

Post by puffoflogic »

vasachi wrote: post #35

You’d think a simple report of all sales of a book within a period would solve all the issues. A simple table of: Timestamp, book, price Then author could simply calculate and verify royalties.

That would not solve the issue of Audible offering free or heavily discounted products and then paying a "royalty" based on the discounted price.

Re: Audiblegate

#86

Post by bonestamp2 »

banku_brougham wrote: post #83
lotophage wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nature of these kinds of errors is that when the error favors Amazon (or whatever company), it's "keep the lights on" mode. If it's the company losing money then alarm bells ring, and it's "all hands on deck" to fix the issue.

OP clarified the opposite here. As former amazon retail I can confirm we commonly lost money to vendors, sellers, and customers. Funny example was prime day promo fat fingered, with several expensive lenses shipped for $99.

I remember that deal being shared online, and being corrected fairly quickly.

Re: Audiblegate

#87

Post by bawolff »

ALittleLight wrote: post #27

I worked on a tool at Amazon once that incorrectly calculated royalties, not because Amazon was greedily trying to steal from publishers, but just because of general incompetence (or, lack of sufficient competence maybe). Basically, of the people who wrote the tool, tested the tool, and used the tool, none of them knew exactly how royalties should be calculated and none of them could tell whether or not they were bei…

As they say, "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence"

Re: Audiblegate

#88

Post by WoahNoun »

weird-eye-issue wrote: post #80
WoahNoun wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The costs they charge relate more to their monopoly on where people shop than their actual costs involved. [Citation needed] Offering <2-day shipping across every address in the US is very expensive. Amazon sellers can sell on Amazon without using FBA.

The fees are broken out into line items. Shipping and inventory costs is a relatively small part. General marketplace fees are much higher. Have you ever sold on Amazon or done any research on this?

The general marketplace fees are the same whether you use FBA or not. Your original comment was complaining about FBA fees which are separate from the marketplace fees.

Re: Audiblegate

#89

Post by function_seven »

83457 wrote: post #66
djrogers wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But again, I would buy a small fraction of the audiobooks I have purchased at full price. I’ve got ~300 audible books in my library, and I can safely say I’d have bought exactly none of them at full price.

You should listen to better books then.

I think you're misunderstanding OP.

The way Audible book pricing works is a little byzantine. The "list" price of most titles is somewhere in the neighborhood of $50. Plus or minus.

But as a subscriber you're given one credit each month, for $15. So right there you can get the same title for much cheaper if it's your credit redemption.

But that's not all. If you buy the Kindle edition of a book, it's only $7.50 or so to add on narration with the purchase. The text copy of the title might be $9.99, so the total is still far less than the "naked" audiobook price.

I don't understand why they do it this way. Even if I'm out of credits, I can save $40 or so by getting the Kindle+Audio bundle vs. just the Audible version alone.

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