Hiding returns under sales also prevents authors from getting an accurate picture of how their books are doing in the marketplace. But Audible-ACX’s Premium Plus program–a relatively new membership category that allows readers to make unlimited returns (for books not finished) and exchanges (for books fully read), no questions asked–aggressively promotes returns and exchanges as a reader benefit, likely incentivizing readers to do so. Of course, returns are a fact of life in the book biz.
Why is this a problem? Well, returns strip authors of income, since authors’ accounts are debited for those returns.
Returns are not broken out separately, and only show up on authors’ sales statements if they exceed the number of sales. Audible-ACX records audiobook sales on a daily basis–but it shows them as an aggregate figure: the total of books sold less books returned. What follows is a long, detailed account of how Audible-ACX has been, in effect, hiding the volume of audiobook returns from authors by lumping them in with sales. Do you have audiobooks on Audible, either through your publisher or via ACX? If so, you’ll want to head over to author Susan May’s blog.
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