First, if you have audiobooks and didn’t pay much attention to the latest ACX email they’ve made some pretty significant changes.
As of March you should actually be able to see returns on your dashboard. No more hiding the extent of the return issue in sales. Which becomes less relevant with another change they made as of the start of the year which is that if a return is made after more than 7 days they’ll eat the cost instead of charging it back to the publisher of the audiobook.
And no more seven-year lock-in. Not even for those with royalty share. If you can make a deal with your audiobook narrator you can move to non-exclusive. And after 90 days you can even remove your books from distribution with them.
It’s basically everything I would’ve liked to see them do about 9 months ago when I first realized that I was basically listing books with them so they could give them away for free.
For me it was too little, too late, though. I asked them to delist my audiobooks and that should happen within the next two weeks.
I was able to do that because they’re such a small part of my earnings. My wide audio makes 30x as much each month as my ACX audio. (We’re not talking big numbers there.)
I’m doing it because personally have no interest in being in business with someone who so patently prioritizes their interests over their business partners’ and doesn’t act to change anything until things publicly hit the fan. So…
Bye-bye, ACX.
Second, some nice new developments at Barnes & Noble where they’re clearly making some efforts to support self-publishers. As of this month they’re going to a flat 70% payout for all price points.
I know they had that site glitch last year that upset a lot of people but all in all I like working with them and am pleased to see those developments.
Google seems to be picking up some steam as well these days, so that’s nice as well. And I think Apple and Kobo are still in the hunt and making improvements, too. So some promise there.
Third, I just did my ad numbers for January and have to say I’m still pleased with AMS ads for my core books.
To be clear, the ads no longer work for all of my books. I just don’t have a deep enough catalog for them to work well in some areas, but overall they definitely move the needle for me.
And compared to what I need to do to set up a Facebook ad, which I also did some of this week, they’re a helluva lot easier to get up and running. No ad creative to come up with, no three fields of text to populate with something engaging, no need to worry that the link you provide in the ad will actually work for the reader…
As far as AMS goes, I was having a conversation earlier this week with someone about the ads and their effectiveness and I think the key point is that you need alignment between everything the potential customer sees along the way from search term to purchase.
If someone searches for “dragon fantasy” then the best possible match for that search term is a kick-ass cover with a dragon on it. (Not an okay dragon. A kick-ass one.) That has to be followed by a book description that’s all about dragons and fantasy worlds and a price point that matches the genre and reviews that are like, “OMG, the dragons!” The more every piece and step lines up, the better the ad performance is going to be.
Miss one step and you have an impression without clicks or clicks without sales. Enough of that and your ad dies or you’re out a lot of money or both.
Fourth, I’m having one of my periodic “what the hell am I doing with my life” thoughts, which I think most self-publishers (or writers) do at some point. (I know there are some who don’t, but not all of us have that stellar rise to the top and ability to stay there.)
Even though I’ve made steady progress year after year, this is not an easy business.
(That’s actually why I like it, which is absurd. I get bored with things I can do well and no amount of money makes up for that lack of challenge. Although I may feel differently about that when I’m 50 and unemployable and all I have to show for my life is my books…Haha. Sigh.)
Spending time and effort on something that can feel like slogging through molasses at times has to make you stop and wonder every once in a while what exactly you’re doing with your life. Like, wouldn’t I rather go back to that six-figure-a-year-part-time project where they treated me like a glorified admin than do this every day?
But I like my dog. And I like not having to be on 28 Zoom calls a week. (Like my brother right now.)
And I like living in my own head instead of trying to figure out how to get that semi-senior executive who thinks he knows all the answers to listen before something vital crashes and burns.
So I continue while I can and I put my faith in the powers that be that something will save me from me when the time comes that it all finally collapses. Haha.
Anyway. We live in interesting times.
M.L. Humphrey 