Audible Bows the Knee to King Brandon

At the beginning of this year, we covered Brandon Sanderson’s dispute with audio book monopolists Audible.

The epic fantasy king and neopatronage pioneer announced his intention not to publish the audio versions of his $40 million crowdfunded books through Audible. His stated reason? That the Amazon subsidiary failed to offer industry-standard royalty rates and transparency to small publishers and independent authors.

Now, in an unprecedented development set to shake up the book industry, Sanderson’s web site reports that Audible has bowed the knee to King Brandon.

I hoped this wake-up call would prompt change. I didn’t refuse to put my books on Audible out of retribution or to declare war; I did it because I wanted to shine as powerful a light as I knew how on a system that highly favored the audio distributors over the authors. I was convinced that the people at Audible really did love books and writers, and that with the right stand taken, I could encourage them toward positive change.

I’m happy to say that this stand has borne some fruit. I’ve spent this last year in contact with Audible and other audio distributors, and have pushed carefully–but forcefully–for them to step up. A few weeks ago, three key officers high in Audible’s structure flew to Dragonsteel offices and presented for us a new royalty structure they intend to offer to independent writers and smaller publishers.

Related: Sanderson’s Neopatronage Masterclass

This new structure doesn’t give everything I’ve wanted, and there is still work to do, but it is encouraging. They showed me new minimum royalty rates for authors–and they are, as per my suggestions, improved over the previous ones. Moreover, this structure will move to a system like I have requested: a system that pays more predictably on each credit spent, and that is more transparent for authors. Audible will be paying royalties monthly, instead of quarterly, and will provide a spreadsheet that better shows how they split up the money received with their authors.

This part looked really good to me, as I understand their decisions. I tried poking holes in the system, looking for ways it could be exploited, and found each issue I raised had already been considered. This doesn’t mean it’s going to be perfect, and people smarter than me might still find problems that I didn’t. However, I think everyone is going to agree the new system IS better. We will better be able to track, for example, how Audible is dividing money between books purchased with a credit and books listened to as part of their Audible Plus program.

Now, before we go too far, I do anticipate a few continuing issues with the final product. I want to manage expectations by talking about those below.

• What I’ve seen doesn’t yet bring us to the 70% royalty I think is fair, and which other, similar industries get.

• Audible continues to reserve the best royalties for those authors who are exclusive to their platform, which I consider bad for consumers, as it stifles competition. In the new structure, both exclusive and non-exclusive authors will see an increase, but the gap is staying about the same.

• Authors continue to have very little (basically no) control over pricing. Whatever the “cover price” of books is largely doesn’t matter–books actually sell for the price of a credit in an Audible subscription. Authors can never raise prices alongside inflation. An Audible credit costs the same as it did almost two decades ago–with no incentive for Audible to raise it, lest it lose customers to other services willing to loss-lead to draw customers over.

Related: Neopatron Brandon

These are things I’d love to see change. However, this deal IS a step forward, and IS an attempt to meet me partway. Indeed, even incremental changes can mean a lot. When I was new in this business, my agent spent months arguing for a two-percent change in one of my print royalties–because every little bit helps. These improvements are going to be larger than two-percent increases.

Because of this, I will be bringing the Secret Projects to Audible very soon. I consider Audible to again be a positive force for the industry, and I have decided to shake hands with them. Audible has promised to release their new royalty system for all authors sometime in 2024, though I should be testing it in the next month or so.

Related: The Bravalanche

King Brandon is being modest.

Sure, Audible didn’t give him everything he wanted.

Yet.

But the fact remains that this turn of events is huge.

Let’s get real. This story is framed in terms of Audible, but Audible is Amazon.

No Big Tech firm has bowed to an individual author’s demands – until now.

It wasn’t Simon & Schuster, or Random Penguins, or even Tor Books that strong-armed a tech giant into giving newpub authors better terms.

And you can be sure of that because that’s who this deal is about: newpub.

You read King Brandon’s statement. He won concessions for independent authors and small publishers. Reading between the lines suggests that Audible already gives big publishers special deals.

And even if they don’t, no big publisher has a vested interest in negotiating better terms for the competition.

But Brandon Sanderson did – because his main business is now newpub. And he succeeded because he got $40 million worth of leverage through neopatronage.

Understand: This has nothing to do with Tor.

When you realize that Sanderson would never have wrung major concessions out of an Amazon brand had he not formed his own company and raised tens of millions of dollars, it’s easy to see.

You could argue that writing for Tor made him famous. And I’ve got arguments backed by hard data that his talent and business sense would have gained him equal or greater success had he started out in newpub.

The point is, if oldpub wasn’t just a surefire ticket to the author gravy train – but, as “aspiring writer” types in the #amwriting scene tell us, the only legit path to success – King Brandon would have stayed exclusive with them.

You don’t see any big New York publishers going to bat for newpub. Which makes sense, because newpub is a direct existential threat to them. Not being newpub defines oldpub.

And the simple fact that Brandon Sanderson is interceding to the benefit of newpub writers makes him a newpub writer by definition.

So he’s still got contracts with Tor. No big deal. Indie isn’t ideological for most newpub authors. If cutting a side deal with an oldpub house makes business sense, many will go ahead and do it.

Even I have done projects with other publishers – not Big Five (four?) – but enough to make me not strictly indie.

The numbers don’t lie. And by those numbers, Brandon Sanderson is now a newpub author whose main income source is neopatronage, and who dabbles in oldpub as a side business.

The publishing paradigm shift is unfolding as I foresaw:

Newpub took power away from the publishers and gave it to authors.

Neopatronage lets authors share that power with readers.

Authors and readers are now using their combined power to force changes not just in oldpub, but in Big Tech.

Do you have any idea how game-changing this new plot twist is?

We’ve known it would take individual power players whose wealth didn’t depend on the system to bring the tech oligarchs to heel.

Guys like Peter Thiel and, more recently, Elon Musk seemed to appreciate the stakes and understand what had to be done.

Both have kind of disappointed, though.

Yet while only publishing industry wonks were paying attention, a fantasy author came along and extracted more benefit for the little guy than either tech jockey.

And the downstream effects of Audible bowing the knee are even more significant. Social media might be the new public square where people discuss ideas. But writers still come up with most of those ideas.

If that wasn’t true, the “Read another book” meme wouldn’t exist.

King Brandon has made it easier for independent authors to stay independent.

That is, in a moral sense, noblesse oblige.

 Ave, Brandon Rex!

 

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