You might be seeing posts all over social media from your fav authors and audiobook narrators about the new Terms of Use that Findaway (aka Spotify) attempted to implement (with thirty days notice) yesterday. I, among many other authors, immediately sent emails indicating that we’d be pulling our audiobooks off Findaway/Spotify if they insisted on pushing through the new terms as written (the issues are numerous so I won’t bother getting into the details here). About eleven hours later, they issued a statement that they were looking into clarifying the wording.
I’m not immediately pulling my audiobooks off Findaway/Spotify but I will remove them if they force me to do so. That will mean that my audiobooks will be pulled from all the retailers that Findaway distributes to, including Nook, Google Play, Hoopla, Spotify, etc.
And, yes, this will impact my sales. Producing audiobooks is expensive. A long-term investment. So obviously making them available to the widest range of readers is ideal. My audiobooks have brought in a significant amount of money in 2023 (though not more than I spent in 2023 😂) – from multiple channels, yes, but losing the ability to reach smaller retailers and libraries via Findaway will be unfortunate.
I will keep you all updated.
With that all said, buying audiobooks directly from me (or other authors) is the least expensive option for you that also pays me the most. Yes! It’s nice that it works out like that! Also, you own the audiobooks (and ebooks for that matter) you buy from me. If you cancel your Audible (etc) account, you can lose your audiobooks (there are ways around this, but you are technically ‘renting’ audiobooks through subscription services).
I’ve pinned a post with links to all my available audiobooks to the top of my blog (because I’m way behind in keeping my links updated on my book pages, sigh) so they are easier to find. Click here to see the list of audiobooks.
Also, in case I don’t say it enough, you all freaking rock, every book you buy from me directly or from any retailer or get at a library directly equates to me being able to make a living doing what I love to do – storytelling!! 😘 Thank you!
