Starting March 12th, 2014, ACX will begin its new royalty share payment system. Gone is the 50% royalty, and kiss the escalator royalty rate system good-bye as well. From that date forward, all newly produced audiobooks using the royalty share system will only earn a 40% commission. And even if you sell a bazillion audiobooks, that rate will never ever change.
(Understand this: you, the narrator, won’t get 40%. You split that with the author. So you’re only getting 20%.)
Why, you may ask, are they doing this? In the yellow box below is the official text from ACX.
Please take note that the quote in the yellow box below is the original text from their website. They have since updated the text to sound more… how shall we say… gentle? (You can see the updated version here: ACX’s website)
But here is the original announcement:
We are lowering the royalties as we continue our mission to accommodate more audiobook productions. Our royalties still remain well above those offered by traditional audiobook publishers. Furthermore, we want to encourage authors, and Rights Holders to promote their audiobooks with the increased bonus payment from $25 to $50 (or from $12.50 to $25.00 on Royalty Share deals).
Hold on a sec!
Let’s actually break this down…
Point #1: