Audible to pay authors $1 per audiobook sale

Amazon is paying authors $1 for every audiobook they sell if they sign up to its Audible Author Services—but publishers will not get a slice of the pie.

Audible will announce at the London Book Fair’s Digital Minds Conference on Sunday (15th April) that it has set up a $20m (£12.6m) fund for authors who sign up to participate in its Author Services Programme, which will give them access to the company’s marketing and merchandising teams.

However, since the $1 per unit payment is an “honorarium”, a direct payment from Amazon to author, publishers will not receive a share of the money. As for agents, that is at authors' “discretion”.

Amazon claims Audible.co.uk is “the UK’s largest provider of digital audiobooks available for download” and said: “For each audiobook sold at Audible.com, Audible.co.uk or iTunes, enrolled authors will receive one dollar directly from Audible, over and above the royalty revenue streams Audible’s fast-growing sales are already generating. Audible will provide each participating author with a suite of quick-start tools, including audio samples and links, to deploy via social media and for promotion of their work, and will offer other awareness and audience-escalation services.”

C.e.o. Donald Katz said: “The good news is that in the digital era, authors have numerous ways to reach audiences and communicate more directly with them. We want to reward authors who are or want to become personally involved in growing their audience.”

The company has author Margaret Atwood on board with the scheme. She said: “The astonishingly rapid growth of the digital audio segment makes audiobook listeners an increasingly important audience for all authors. I’m thrilled that 10 of my books are available at Audible. Now, more than ever, I’ll be working to make sure that the rest of my backlist becomes available in audio as soon as possible.”