Audible, the BorantCorporation of audiobooks

Introduction

So you’ve heard about a new and awesome book. You want to read it because your friends are going nuts over it. You’re blind and broke, so you check Bard or Bookshare. Surprise, it’s not there because Amazon says no. Now how fair is that?
This post came about while browsing Reddit earlier. A lot of people were talking about the Dungeon Crawler Carl audiobooks and I asked if they could possibly make their way to accessible libraries like NLS Bard or Bookshare. Someone kindly responded to me to answer that question. The answer, however, disgusted me. They said no because Amazon has an exclusivity policy and won’t even let stuff go to places like that for people who need it. This is not ok. This needs to change.

Give us our books!

We like to read just like everyone else. Some of us just do it in a slightly different way. Instead of using commercial outlets like Audible to get our books, we use accessible libraries made with us in mind. The books are well structured for easy navigation and available in bulk. No downloading only one book a month here. We can just go on a book grabbing rampage if we want to. However, know what we won’t be getting? Dungeon Crawler Carl or any other Audible exclusives. I don’t know about you, but to me, that’s total bullshit. We might want to buy them, but can we afford it? Sometimes the answer is no.

But it’s only $15 a month. Just spend the money.

Now this is an argument I see everywhere. It doesn’t cost that much. It’s just $15 per month. This usually comes from people with extra money to spend. Here’s the deal. We don’t have that luxury most of the time. According to the NFB, about seven million Americans have significant vision loss. Of those who can work, only about 37% are actually employed. Before you say try harder, it’s not that simple, but more on that later. If only 37% are employed, that means 63% are stuck on a fixed income. That fixed income is less than $1000 per month. Once we pay all the bills or help our families if living with them, we don’t have squat. That means no luxury subscriptions like Audible. Even when we do have it, that’s one credit a month. That’s not nearly enough to grab the whole series you want. Now if you had the stuff you wanted in an accessible library, you could grab it all.

You should support the authors. They work hard.

Yes, authors do work hard. However, buying from Audible doesn’t do as much for them as you think. There are much better ways to support the authors. Here’s the big one. Share their work. If you enjoy something, tell your friends. Encourage them to check it out. Do this even more if there’s a way to purchase from the author directly. That way, they get the money that belongs to them. I mean come on, Amazon didn’t write the darn books. They didn’t come up with the ideas. They didn’t spend the hours upon hours in the recording studio to narrate them. Why, then, should they get so much of the money? From what I’ve learned, authors can get as little as 20 to 25% of the sale price on Audible if they go exclusive. And that’s before splitting profits
with the narrator, which many authors do. That means if you spend $15, the author might walk away with just $3—or less. Amazon keeps the rest. You tell
me how that’s fair.

The authors try

So remember the Dungeon Crawler Carl Reddit discussion from earlier? Well, someone actually showed me a post from author Matt Dinniman. He said, and I quote, “Hey, author guy here. This is something I have explored in the past after discussing it with a few blind listeners. Unfortunately, Amazon’s exclusivity also applies to the National Library Service, which means digital versions, like the talking book service, aren’t allowed.”
This is not his fault. The fault lies strictly with Amazon for being so stingy. Matt isn’t an idiot. He knows Jeff Hayes is the gold standard of narration for these books and no one else could give so much to the characters. It’s clear he wants to help us, but Amazon is getting in the way.

This hurts readers

This whole exclusivity thing really hurts the reader. Not only are we locked out of having this material in our accessible libraries, but in many cases, because of the associated cost, we’re locked out of the books entirely. Borrow from a friend? Nope, illegal. Besides, there’s DRM to deal with. DRM is a fancy term for copy protection, AKA you only get to listen in the way Audible says. No smart phone or modern player? Guess what? You’re screwed. No book for you. Now even the older blindness specific player can do the Bard and Bookshare thing. That’s why they were built. If we can’t play it, we can’t read it.

So how can I help?

Here are a few things you can do to make a big deal out of this and possibly make Amazon listen.

Support authors directly when possible, such as via Patreon.

Share this with everyone you know. Enough noise usually makes a change.

Contact Amazon and encourage them to loosen up. Tell them this whole thing is unfair to readers who are being locked out.

Let the authors know you care.

Let the narrators know you value their work.

Most of all, happy reading.