“If Audible wishes to continue to permit the returns and exchanges of audiobooks after more than a reasonable time, say 48 hours, then Audible must do so at its own expense and pay authors the royalties due for the sales.” “In breach of its own non-negotiable agreement, without asking or notifying the authors, Audible has put books into a de facto subscription program that pays no royalties and thereby robs authors of the income due under the contract,” says the letter, which was sent on 20 November. They described the system as not a return or exchange policy, but a rental or subscription arrangement in “disguise” – which is not what writers grant Audible when they sign up to its terms of service. The letter alleges that some customers were using one subscription credit to listen to a whole series of books, while others were returning audiobooks they didn’t want to listen to for a second time. Writer Susan May, a leading campaigner against what has become known as #Audiblegate, told the Guardian that authors were unaware of the magnitude of their returns because Audible only supplies net figures without showing returns separately. The audiobook market is currently booming, with sales up 42% to £56m in the first half of this year. One author estimated they had lost tens of thousands of dollars as a result of the policy. The letter said that thousands of authors had seen losses to their income as a result, with writers citing “alarmingly high rates of return, from 15% to as much as 50% or more of lost sales over time”.

Audible books cost