AudibleGate: How Audible Took Advantage Of Its Authors

AudibleGate, also known as Audible's scandal, involved independent authors and smaller publishers who published their books on Audible through the ACX platform. Audible had a generous returns policy that allowed subscribers to return books without question, even after listening to the entire book. However, every time a book was returned, the authors had to repay the royalties. This practice was hidden in the contracts and accounting. The authors only discovered the truth when a data glitch revealed three weeks' worth of returns in a single day. Active author and activist Susan May led a campaign against Audible, resulting in some changes, but significant issues remain. The wage theft from authors is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Amazon locks authors into restrictive contracts with no investment in the production process. Author Colleen Cross discovered that royalties were not being paid according to the contracts, and believes that the cost of returns was deducted twice, leading to further losses for authors. However, getting information from Amazon and Audible is extremely difficult, and the individual authors are atomized and not unionized, making it challenging to seek redress. The scam perpetrated by Audible is a culmination of various abuses with little recourse for creators.