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Originally Posted by darryl
Both good points. But of course author's are not lawyers, and I'd imagine that even many who did read the agreement would not have understood the implications. A very harsh lesson.
And yes, there may well be some benefit in the exposure. I doubt it outweighs the costs of virtually giving away the audiobooks. With a new untested program like this leaving Audible so much control committing for up to 7 years was a grave risk. One I suspect Audible was well aware of in drafting the terms.
The lesson is very clear. Get a lawyer to look at the agreement. If you can't afford one at least look through it very carefully yourself and get some of your more knowledgeable friends to as well.
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And that's why authors have (or should have) agents who are trustworthy.
As far as your earlier comment about it being what you expect from big 5 publishers but not Amazon/Audible, I think it's very typical of Amazon. Amazon likes to play hardball with their suppliers and authors are suppliers to Amazon. Walmart was famous for that sort of dealing with their suppliers and Bezos uses Walmart as his model. Anyone who thinks that there is a difference in behavior between Amazon and any of the big 5 publishers (or frankly, most large corporations) is, IMPO, engaged in wishful thinking. Most large corporations will do what they think they can get away with as long as they think it helps their bottom line.