I just learned about a ‘technique’ our scammers are using regarding audio books.But not just any audiobooks. No, these involve audiobooks that are in the Audible Romance Package.
‘LEAVE YOUR AUDIOBOOK ON ALL NIGHT’
Amazon/Audible implemented this new ‘subscription’ service last summer. With it, readers/listeners can listen to an unlimited number of audiobooks per month for a fee. Much like Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited program, you only get to listen to those books that are in the romance package program.
The author of that audiobook is paid for each minutea reader listens to your book(s). There is no limit to the number of times you can listen to the same book. Once, twice, thirty times, it doesn’t matter. We are paid for each of those minutes. Absolutely no checks and balances on this.
So the scammers, who find ways of scamming crap faster than a kid can find mom’s hidden chocolate, are taking over the Audible Romance Package Program. Seriously, this is a whole new level of scamming.
So what are they doing? They’re asking their ‘readers’ to play the book a few times. They don’t even have to listen to the book. Just play it. Leave it on loop. Leave it on all night, on loop. Leave it on all day, on loop.
I could not figure out why my audible royalties took a nose dive over the last few months. I’m talking a 75% drop. Now I know: the scammers are taking over Audible.
They’re not really listening to the book; they’re just playing the books over and over and over again.
I’m sure there is probably a new audiobook click farm in some dark basement somewhere, listening to audiobooks 24/7. But they’re not really listening, they’re just playing the books.Over and over and over again. And according to Audible, that is not against the rules.
Dozens upon dozens of audiobooks in all sorts of genres by known scammers, have been flooding the system since Audible launched the RP.
And yes, Audible has a ‘bonus’ for those audiobooks that had high ‘minutes listened to.’ Sort of like Amazon’s All Star Bonus for their KU program.
We are paid next to nothing for each minute listened. We get as little as 0.00095 of a cent per minute listened. Let us do some math. Let’s use a 5 hour book as an example. A five hour book equals 300 minutes. 300 x 0.00095 means we get 0.285 of a cent for that book. If the book had been purchased outright, I would get $4.42 cents. That is a remarkable difference.
So let’s take a 24 hour day. There are 1440 minutes in a day, multiply that by 0.00095 and you get $1.38. Doesn’t sound like much, because it isn’t. But if you have say 10 audiobooks in the package and you have dozens of people playing it on loop, the money does eventually begin to increase. However, the scammers don’t really care about that part of the equation. What they want is the Audible Romance Package bonus. That bonus is calculated doing math I doubt Sheldon Cooper could figure out. The bonus is given to the ‘authors’ who had the ‘most listens’ for the quarter. We’re talking thousands of dollars.
I did earn that bonus the first two quarters. However, my royalties started taking a drastic dive after the first quarter. At first, I wasn’t concerned because I thought it was this new program finding its way. I was also getting a nice bonus that made up for the loss in royalties.
But over the past few months, the royalties have dropped so significantly and so dramatically that the ‘bonus’ doesn’t even begin to make up for the loss in royalties.
Audiobooks are expensive to make. Especially if you write really big books like I do. It can me cost over $4,000 to create an audiobook for one of my bigger books. In the past, I usually made the money within a month or two of release. I would continue to make good money on it for years after. That, however, is no longer the case.
So we have a whole new battle to fight. I can’t wrap my head around this right now. Not only is Amazon allowing their KU system to be gamed, Audible allows it as well.
It boggles the mind. Not only do we have to deal with pirated copies of our audiobooks at Youtube, now this.
I told you this would get much worse before it got better. I don’t know if this is the worst of it yet. I’m afraid to think about it.
I’ve learned a few things over the past few days. Things that make me shake my head. Things that make me want to throw things and scream. It’s enough to make a grown woman want to drink.
Yesterday morning someone brought to my attention another ‘scheme’ the scammers are pulling. And they’ve been pulling it for quite some time. For years in fact. Here is how it works:
Author A has had a ghostwriter write Book A. Author A has published it, made a few bucks off of it, but now the book isn’t making him any money. So he then offers that book for sale within a private group of fellow scammers. For anywhere from $50 to $1,000. Sometimes they auction these previously published works off to the highest bidder.
Author B buys the book, changes the title, the cover, and the pronouns. She might take this book that was originally, let’s say a Navy Seal book, and turns it into a MM romance. Then Author B publishes it into the KU program.
Real writers don’t do this.
Author B didn’t write on word of this ‘new’ book. Not one word. All she did was change the title, the pronouns, and the cover. And chances are, she had her ghostwriter or a VA do those changes for her.
And what do her friends in this secret group do? They send out newsletters to all the readers on their newsletter subscriber list. “My friend, author B, has just released a new book! Go download your copy today!” Or her friends will write some pretty awesome, “OMG! I loved this book!” reviews.
This is a scam. These are people (I cannot and will never call them authors) who are nothing more than scam publishers. They hire ghostwriters for next to nothing, slap the book into KU, and using either click farms or unsuspecting readers, they game the system. They’ve taught their readers to flip to the end of the book so they can be sure to get paid. They publish anywhere from 2 to 10 books a month under one pen name.
I will NEVER call these people authors.
For the scammers, it in not, nor has it ever been, about the writing. It’s all about the money. It is ONLY about the money.
This scheme of buying another publisher’s (still can’t call them authors) work, repackaging them and selling them is beyond deplorable. What is worse is the fact that these people don’t see the harm in it.
This is from Nora’s blog:
In reply to Nora Roberts. The link you posted above is suggesting that authors cannot sell their intellectual property (their books) to other authors and publishers. It’s literally calling someone a “scammer” for selling the rights to some books they wrote. How on Earth is that a scam? By that measure, every single traditional publisher that has ever bought rights to a book (and subsequently published that title with their own cover and marketing spin) would be a “scammer”. That’s silly. Do you genuinely think it’s a scam for someone to sell the publishing rights/copyright for their original work to another person? If that person then packages and sells that book to the masses, is that a scam? I’m genuinely open to talk if you want to have a quick dialogue about this stuff. That link you posted is just an honest author trying to sell the books THEY wrote, and some random silliness besides.
I would sincerely love to talk to this person about this very topic. Your argument is ridiculous. You’re trying to equate traditional publishing with the bullshit you’re pulling. You’re NOT publishing original works. You’re selling ghostwritten work. You’re selling previously published works. Works written by a ghostwriter. Works you are ‘repackaging.’
Traditional publishers don’t do this.
Real writers don’t do this.
If these were stories YOU had written but had never published, then I’d probably not have a problem with it. However, that is NOT what is happening here. Yes, I genuinely think this is a scam. You are a scammer. You are a liar and a cheat. I have no problem with calling you that. And if you would ‘genuinely’ like to talk about it, please, feel free to reach out to me. You know where to find me. I don’t hide under an avatar or pen name.
I’m Suzan Tisdale. I write every word of every sentence of every paragraph of every chapter of every one of my books. I don’t hire ghostwriters to ‘clean it up’. I will gladly put any of my books up against one of your books any day of the week.
There are a lot of problems facing the indie publishing industry right now. Each vendor—Amazon, Nook, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play—has their own unique problems. But those problems pale in comparison to the problems plaguing Amazon.
You might want to grab a cup of coffee and settle in. This could take a while.
Pick any day of the week and invariably someone is posting a question to a board or a group that begins with “Is anyone else having issues at Amazon involving [insert problem here]?”Someone will usually reply with “Yes, I’m having same issue. When I called, they said there was a ‘glitch’ in the system.”
For a multi billion dollar corporation, they certainly seem to have a lot of ‘glitches’. I don’t mean one or two glitches spread across the timespan of a year. I’m talking near daily ‘glitches’. Issues ranging from files not uploading, can’t get new covers to take, sales ranks frozen for days after a new release, reviews disappearing, non existent quality control issues, accounts frozen for no reason; the list is endless.
For a multi billion dollar corporation, they certainly seem to have a lot of ‘glitches’.
One of my personal favorites are the ever-increasing preorder fiascos, whereby on released day Amazon sends out the placeholder file instead of the actual book.
Don’t even get me started on the KDP Print issues.
Why would they? They’re making money hand over fist. Billions every year. The problems aren’t just limited to the indie authors. They treat all their ‘vendors’ the same way: with repugnant indifference.
The current hot topic issue is plagiarism (#CopyPasteCris). This is nothing new on the Amazon front. It’s been going on for years. Years. David Gaughran talks about his own experience on this front that dates back to 2012. Read his twitter from this morning. If that doesn’t make your blood boil, I don’t know what will.
The issues that we have at Amazon are never replicated with the other vendors. Kobo checks each and every one of its books for plagiarism before they allow it to be published. Amazon is a hell of a lot bigger than Kobo, makes God-only-knows-how-much more money than Kobo, yet they can’t seem to get any kind of system to check for plagiarism.
iTunes and Nook allow us to set up asset-less preorders. For those non-authors reading this, it simply means we can put up a book for a preorder without having to have any kind of file attached to it. Then a week before the book is set to go live, we upload the final book files. Easy peasy and never an issue.
Amazon requires a placeholder file. Doesn’t matter what is in that file just so long as you have one. Which doesn’t sound too bad until you’ve had the lovely experience of Amazon sending out the placeholder file instead of the actual book. This happens about every other week. So, Author Jane uploads the final book file weeks before said book is to go live, but instead of sending out her beautifully written book, Amazon sends out the placeholder file.
They never ever take responsibility for this. So, when a reader calls to complain, Amazon will always tell them the author is at fault. Even though she isn’t at fault, she is according to Amazon. And why would the reader believe anything else? Customer support is telling them the fault is with the author.
They never ever take responsibility
Meanwhile, Author Jane is sitting at home pissed, hurt, angry, and stunned because people are leaving 1 star reviews that read: “I didn’t get the book! What a scam! I called Amazon and they said Author Jane is at fault. I will never read another book by this author again.”
But author Jane did everything she was supposed to. She uploaded the book weeks before it was set to go live. She played by the rules. Did her part. Yet… she’s at fault. Now she has to spend days scrambling to get Amazon to send out the right file while she’s doing damage control with her readers.
The problems aren’to just with plagiarism and preorders. The list of problems at Amazon are endless. But its biggest problem is the KU (Kindle Unlimited) Program.
While I do love the idea of a subscription service, Amazon can’t seem to get its head out of its proverbial ass long enough to fix the problems. KU is rife with scammers, stuffers, ne’er-do-wells, thieves, cheaters, and yes, even plagiarizers. Legitimate authors — those authors who plant their butts in a chair and write every word of every book — can’t compete with these thieves. We just can’t.
Kobo has a wonderful subscription service called Kobo Plus. I participate in it. Lots of authors do. But we don’t have to have exclusivity and we definitely don’t have to fight page stuffers, scammers, and thieves at Kobo.
Let us take a trip down memory lane. Picture it; the midwest, 2013. I have three books out. THREE. I am a KDP select princess. I’m making an average of $30,000+ a month off of three books. THREE. LEGITIMATELY. And I wrote every single word.
Then Amazon launches KU 1.0 (that was where the reader had to read at least 10% of a book before the author got paid. Enter the ten-page Dino porn books.) In one month, I went from making $30k+ to $3450. In. One. Month. I suck at math, but even I can tell that is a 90% decrease in income.
I could have stayed in KU to see if the numbers picked up. But I took that huge plunge in income as a sign: it was going to get worse. Way worse before it got better.
It has been an uphill struggle ever since. I’ve got more than 20 books out now and I can’t get anywhere near the numbers I was making before KU 1.0 hit. Just a fraction. I do not participate in KU. My books are wide. I’m still making a great living. I’m still able to write full time. However, the playing field is not even.
First world problems, right? I’m not asking for sympathy. I’m simply stating cold, hard facts.
Enter KU 2.0 (where the author is paid for each page that is read) and with it, the real scammers; the infamous book stuffers. These thieves were creating books that were thousands of pages long. Thousands. Then they were teaching their readers how to ‘flip to the end of the book’. The reader didn’t have to read it, they could just flip to the end and voila! The author has just earned $10-$13. For one book. One. Book. Multiply that by say 500 loyal readers who use want to help an author out, because hey, the poor guy has to eat. That is $6500 off one book. Now multiply that by 10 books and you begin to see why we’re pissed.
Then they teach the reader to return that book that is in KU and purchase it. “I’ll send you a give card so you can buy the book.”
And these weren’t books they’d actually written. No, they’d hired a bunch of ghostwriters (I have nothing against ghostwriters when used legitimately). The books were not edited and the story line didn’t matter. The writing was horrendous. But it didn’t matter to these ‘authors’. It was all about the almighty dollar. It is always about the almighty dollar with these people.
To set the record straight: I have lots of wonderful author friends, legitimate authors who write their own books, and they are killing it in Amazon. I’m not talking about the legitimate authors. I’m talking about the scammers. Had I chosen to stay and were I making $75-100k a month in KU, I would STILL be bitching, just like my fellow authors are. It’s a daily struggle fighting this beast.
So we started standing up and fighting
So they put 10 – 30 stories inside one book. The problem was, neither the book description nor the blurb would indicate there was ‘bonus content’, which was a huge violation of Amazon’s terms of service. And apparently, Amazon wasn’t smart enough to detect that a 25,000 page book was a bit ‘large’. Amazon simply didn’t care.
So we started standing up and fighting and explaining to the readers all that was wrong with the Chance Carters and RR Banks and Cassandra Dees that were out there.
Some of these so-called-authors actually had Amazon reps. For the non-authors, a rep is a coveted thing to have. A KDP rep has to be earned. Not everyone has them. (Yes, I have a rep.) These reps who were assigned to the thieves actually worked to help the thieves game the system. They’d give them little tips and pointers on what to do or what not to do. Then the reps would turn a blind eye to what was happening.
It wasn’t until we raised a stink and Amazon’s reputation with readers began to slide that they finally did something. Well, sort of.
Amazon did take down several of the well known book stuffers in the contemporary romance genre. But to date, they have done absolutely nothing about the other genres.
Another problem Amazon has is banning legitimate authors for no reason. They give them no recourse to fight. “We saw an unexplained increase in your pages read last month.” Seriously? Did Amazon even stop to ask if that author had run an ad or a BookBub deal? No, they didn’t.
Amazon tends to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It needs to stop.
Historical Romance is plagued with these so-called-authors. But what people don’t know is it is the same scam. A publishing company — let’s pretend one is located in Greece and the other is in Taiwan. They hire ghostwriters for next to nothing, slap a cover on a book, make up a fake author, complete with fake picture and profile. (Note, these are almost always the same profile for each of their fake authors.)
They screw around with the formatting of the book. Their damned table of contents are sometimes 12 pages long because of the triple spacing. They screw around and have each paragraph of each page triple spaced. These little nuances now make what should be a 50 page book a 400+ page book.
Amazon swears they have programs in place that catch the screwy formatting. Yet, they continue to allow it. They do nothing. Not one damned thing.
Because, you guessed it, they do not care.
Because these foreign publishing houses are able to put out books rapidly, and use click farms (that is a group of people who are paid to do nothing but sit around on 10 different smartphones, iPads, tablets, and flip to the end of each book without reading it), they take upwards of 80% of hot new releases. Their rankings are high, very high. And that means the rest of us, the legitimate authors who are playing by the rules, can’t get seen.
But go to FB or Twitter and ask any reader of Historical romance if they’ve heard of any of these authors? You’ll get a resounding No, who are they?
Some of these so-called-authors are in the top 10 bestselling authors on Amazon.
But go to FB or Twitter and ask any reader of Historical romance if they’ve heard of any of these people? You’ll get a resounding No, who are they?
How can anyone who is #8 at Amazon, who has hundreds of reviews for each book, who launches a book a month (or sometimes more), who is always in the top 50 in their genre — usually in the top 5 — NOT BE KNOWN? How can they rank so high and yet not anyone who reads legitimate authors have ever heard of them?
They have zero relationship with their readers. Zero relationship with fellow authors in their genre. Boggles the mind.
We’ve reported, we bitched, we’ve complained. We’ve sent Amazon screen shots. We’ve reported one violation after another. But Amazon does nothing.
Life isn’t fair, but it should be equitable. And there is nothing equitable about any of this.
I’m done playing by the rules of decorum.
I’m not going to remain quiet any longer.
I’m going to start naming names.
To the scammers and thieves: You know who you are. WE know who you are.