Kindle Unlimited to Kindle+
Longtime reader Jesse asks about Kindle Unlimited rebranding to Kindle+ and adding audiobooks to the service:
“Since KU is becoming “Kindle +”, and now apparently has scads of audiobooks, do you anticipate them attempting to do something similar to what they do with the ebook exclusivity deal?”
That is a question with an exceptionally detailed answer, which we will get into here!
Amazon has already been pushing audiobook exclusivity for the better part of fifteen years. They’ve changed the payment formula on the Audiobook Creation eXchange (ACX) several times, but right now if you create an audiobook through ACX, the royalty rate is 30% if it’s non-exclusive to Audible, but 50% if it’s exclusive to Audible. Granted, there’s a lot of math that goes into what the payout actually is, such as whether or not the audiobook is bought outright or with an Audible credit, whether or not the audiobook is on sale at the time, and how many minutes the buyer listens to the audiobook. But after all that is calculated, non-exclusive audiobooks get 30%, and exclusive audiobooks get 50%
The pool of audiobooks that are eligible for Kindle+ is surprisingly limited. The associated ebook has to be in Kindle+, and the audiobook connected with the ebook has to be exclusive to Audible. Both of those conditions have to be met if an audiobook is going to be in Kindle+. Like for myself, even the Rivah audiobooks wouldn’t qualify, because the ebooks are exclusive to Kindle+ but all the audiobooks are available on all retailers.
A big potential wrinkle with this is that Amazon’s Virtual Voice AI-voiced audiobooks are automatically eligible for Kindle+. A few people have worried that this will destroy human-narrated audiobooks, or that Virtual Voice audiobooks will dominate the charts, but I strongly doubt this will be the outcome. Based on my own experience with SILENT ORDER and YouTube, I’ve found that people really dislike synthetic voices in fiction audiobooks, even if it’s a good synthetic voice. Like, synthetic voices are fine in YouTube ads for sketchy pharmaceuticals and marginally viable political candidates, and even in some genres of nonfiction, but a significantly large portion of the listener market seems to hate AI-generated voices in audiobooks, especially fiction.
I think even Audible itself is aware of this, even if parent company Amazon is still enthusiastic for AI. You will note that Audible is investing big bucks in live-narrated audiobooks like full-cast HARRY POTTER, or full-cast DRACULA, and they’re not touting AI-voiced audiobooks for their big productions.
Because of that, I don’t think Virtual Voice audiobooks will make much of a splash. Like, you could make a little money with them, especially if you write technical nonfiction (I expect most people wouldn’t object to a tax law textbook read by a synthetic voice), but I think the primary use case for Virtual Voice in Kindle+ will be the usual scammers with bot farms.
Not counting the scams, the thing about subscription services like Kindle+ or Kobo Plus is that they are ruthlessly, mercilessly, brutally egalitarian. You only get paid if someone actually reads your book or listens to your audiobook. That’s why scammers keep trying to game the Kindle+ charts or flood them with AI slop books. It’s also why so many new writers have a hard time with Kindle+, because it’s really hard when you’re starting out to write a book that people want to read from beginning to end. You could turn all your novels into Virtual Voice audiobooks in Kindle+, but if no one actually listens to them, you won’t make any money.
Will I be putting my audiobooks into Kindle+? Probably not. Like I said, I don’t have many audiobooks that would even be eligible since most of them are wide. I might put STEALTH & SPELLS ONLINE back into Kindle+ so I can put THE COMPLETE TRILOGY audiobook in Kindle+, but I won’t even think about doing that until 2027.
Besides, if I’ve learned anything from 15 years of self-publishing, it’s that when there’s a new development or market, let everyone else rush in uncharted territory first! That way somebody else finds all the land mines for me. 🙂
-JM