I agree that these exclusivity deals are bad news for most of us but to be completely frank this is largely on the authors. They are the ones agreeing, ultimately, to these deals to line their own pockets at the expense of readers and potential readers. Yeah Amazon is evil but no one forces the authors into this.
That's like saying that no one is forcing workers choose to accept horrible working conditions, so they are equally to blame for agreeing to those conditions and not choosing another job.
But in practice whoever has more monopolistic power is the one setting the rules, and in this case it's undoubtedly Amazon.
And just like in case of poor working conditions, failure of regulation is to blame for Amazon's ability to do that. Specifically in case of audiobooks, a loophole in the first sale doctrine as someone else mentioned.
Blaming individuals for making selfish or myopic choices is appealing but is not going to take us far out of this situation.
One can be annoyed at both Amazon and the authors for this anti-customer behavior.
That said, I personally have a hard time assigning the same levels of blame at authors, since they're being given a lot of money for the exclusivity deals. Authors don't have the same liquidity options as Amazon, making the relationship a bit unequal. Especially when having an audiobook made can cost in excess of $200 an hour.
many entrepreneurs face the same risks . Bulk of open source development is unpaid labour . Developers are able to manage this by doing that over and above a regular job and doing it out of passion not money.
They have a choice whether they want to professional or amateur.
Excluding fiction authors have to be professionals in some other field to have something to write about . They don’t need to be professional authors.
If amazon or a publishing house can spend the marketing dollars to get your book promoted then it would make sense to do exclusive , If that’s not the case and they really wanted more people can read and enjoy it , they can remain amateur and fund it from pocket to make that happen don’t you think ?
I find the claim that non-fiction writers are all effectively hobbiests to be less-than-compelling. Non-fiction and fiction alike (at least the good stuff) requires a large amount of research, time that's built into the 6 month figure I put above (and some good writers are even slower than that, even full time).
> they can remain amateur and fund it from pocket to make that happen don’t you think
Sure - I think it's entirely possible. Even for a confident full time writer it's possible. But - and this is the core point - I have a hard time blaming them for taking the money for their hard work. Same with OSS developers. I have a hard time blaming OSS developers for taking hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in buyout deals, or in salaries as they write OSS code on behalf of a company.
Former Amazonian who acquired audiobook publishing rights.
Audible has people who buy rights directly from authors. By being publisher/retailer they can (but don't always) offer an author a higher % of the net sale than they would get from anyone else, AND they can promote the audiobook selling MORE units.
> I agree that these exclusivity deals are bad news for most of us but to be completely frank this is largely on the authors. They are the ones agreeing, ultimately, to these deals to line their own pockets at the expense of readers and potential readers. Yeah Amazon is evil but no one forces the authors into this.
No individual author has the ability to impact something like this from happening on their own. Why would it be "largely the author's fault" when they have no say over the ecosystem?
Uh because anyone can actually read their own book and sell it as an audio book. There’s actually very little overhead there - if you’ve got an audience. If you don’t have an audience then typically authors start out in situations like this or grow their market through their own means. There’s not a constitutional right to plaster the media with your book ads.
> don't enter into an exclusive contract, and pick instead a contract that allows them to market in other places as well.
It's not like you get to tick off a feature list in your contracts to get all the stuff you want. Audible is likely paying them for exclusivity and they're getting read and promotion out of it that other publishers aren't able to get them. The author's goal is to get their work to where people who want to read it are. It a weird sift of responsibility to expect the author to concern themselves with how the overall audiobook market shakes out for consumers or even other authors. They have no leverage in the negotiation to make those decisions unless they're like Stephen King.
> It's not like you get to tick off a feature list in your contracts to get all the stuff you want.
Yes, actually that's exactly how it is. The author can choose if they want it exclusive or not, and Audible will offer them some money to go exclusive.
Many of the Audible exclusives, especially for shorter works, have Audible acting as publisher and the deal is between Audible and the author (presumably with the agent acting as intermediary). I suspect also that with some of the older titles, like Handmaid's Tale, the original publication deal didn't include audiobook rights.
