One of the reasons why many subscribers are fond of Audible is that Audible has a liberal return policy, where people can return audiobooks and get a credit refund, within 365 days. And Audible always actively promotes returns as a feature of an Audible subscription.
The thing is, Audible doesn’t sell audiobooks as a subscription. They sell credits, so when an audiobook is returned, they give a credit back to the subscriber. Audible then deduct royalties from authors and narrators while at the same time keeping the money they were paid for the credit. Well, this is absolutely unfair for rightsholders. This return policy costs Audible nothing while costs creators everything.
So last November, author groups, like the Authors Guild, RWA, ALLi, SFWA, etc, have jointly published an open letter to Audible, demanding that Audible end its practice of encouraging easy returns and exchanges. “This is not an exchange policy, but an unauthorized audiobook rental arrangement supported by authors’ reversed royalties, and it must stop.”
Out of the publisher pressure, Audible have been working to address some ACX authors’ concerns about Audible’s overall exchange policy. In recognition of these concerns, starting January 1, 2021, Audible will pay royalties for any title returned more than 7 days following purchase. This adjustment does not impact our customers’ current benefits of membership.
In a blog update, Audible said: “the intent of this program is to allow listeners to discover their favorite voice, author, or story in audio. In instances where we determine the benefit is being overused, Audible can and does limit the number of exchanges and refunds allowed by a member. But as designed, this customer benefit allows active Audible members in good standing to take a chance on new content, and suspicious activity is extremely rare.”
Anyway, only a win-win situation can benefit both creators and providers.
Bonus tips: if you want to back up your purchased contents for personal uses, you can follow this guide to convert Audible books to MP3 directly.
