newbie seeks recommendations

[kozikowski]

One other note. ACX rates your performance in technical conformance and then, after it passes that, Human Quality Control. Technical conformance can't tell distortion. You violated Human Quality Control.

We're getting there!

Koz

[Lorain]

Thanks.

I've recorded two chapters, I guess I'll just look through them and see if any other red lines show up. I don't mind re-recording, I've been doing a bit of it!

[Lorain]

Just received from ACX( ):

"Hello Lorain,

Thanks for submitting your sample, "1.0_Chapter_One_HDG_mastered.mp3", for review. This file currently meets all of the ACX Submission Requirements. Nice work!

For more information, feel free to contact our Customer Support Team at:

[email protected]

Monday - Friday from 7:00AM - 7:00PM ET

United States & Canada: 1-888-396-6347

Monday - Thursday from 9:00AM - 7:00PM ET

United Kingdom: 0800 031 4086

Ireland 1800 904 1607

Monday - Thursday from 12:00PM - 9:00PM UTC

Regards,
The ACX Team
Visit ACX.com

Michael Taddeo

Asset Specialist & Production Advisor, ACX"

So, I'ma narratin' away!

Thanks again, Koz.

[kozikowski]

Excellent. Now, before you wave goodby, tell us how you contacted ACX and how they told you to submit your test. That's a hole in our recommendations.

I think officially, they don't accept unsolicited readings "pushed under the door," or "thrown over the transom," to reuse two old metaphors.

So your turn. How did you do it?

Koz

[Lorain]

I sent ACX this email:

“to [email protected]
Hello. I'm a self-pubber who is interested in self-narrating one of my books for ACX. However, I am concerned I will not be able to meet ACX's technical requirements and I don't want to narrate an entire book only to find out the technical recording quality of it is not good enough for ACX. So, my question is, can I submit a sample only, to ACX, and have you tell me whether this sample meets ACX's technical requirements (or even better, if it doesn't, what is wrong with it)?

Thank you,
Lorain”

I received back this response from ACX:

“Hello Lorain,

Thank you for contacting ACX and I hope all is well.

I understand you would like to submit a sample audio file to our Audio Team for review. To begin this process, please take the survey located at the following link:

https://audible.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/f ... SERTIDHERE

Taking this survey will help the Audio Team provide the best feedback for your sample. The survey will first guide you through a few short questions regarding your sample, current production setup, and skillset. At the end, you will upload your audio sample and provide contact info so the Audio Team can reach out to you with their feedback.

Once you have completed the survey, the Audio Team will review your sample and provide feedback within 5-10 business days.You can reach us by email or phone at 1-888-396-6347. We are available Monday through Thursday, 9am to 7pm Eastern. Have a great day!

Thank you in advance!

Cesily
ACX Client Support”

When you click on the link, it asks you questions about how you made your recording (including whether you used Audacity or one of the other apps). At the end there is a spot where you drop/drag your sample, then hit the submit button.

[kozikowski]

[writing that down]

Terrific.

Have you picked out a picturesque ocean-side cottage you're going to retire to when you become rich and famous? Something on the French Riviera perhaps? Saint-Tropez? Mal de Mare? Coq au Vin?

Koz

[Lorain]

Seeing as how this [digital] book has earned me a total of $128 so far, I may have to hold up on that French Riviera chateau!

BTW, have you heard what's going on with ACX and Amazon's Kindle Unlimited ("KU") authors? KU authors have discovered that Amazon has been giving away their ACX audio books for free (without the author's permission) to KU subscribers. It's happened to many authors; here's one author's posting about it:

"I noticed my audio book was being given away in Kindle Unlimited without notification to me on July 19. I don't know how long it has been offered as free.

So I wrote immediately to both ACX and KDP advising them that they did not have my permission to bundle my audiobook, which cost me $3,500 to produce, as free in Kindle Unlimited. I asked them to advise how many downloads had occurred and how they intended to compensate me. I also stated that I considered this a serious breach of my copyright and that I wanted an urgent response.

This is what I received the next day.

Dear Susan,

I've retrieved both of your emails and will reply here.

We appreciate you bringing this to our attention. I've escalated this issue to our rights team as your ACX created content should not be part of Kindle Unlimited.

I apologize for the inconvenience and have passed your notes along to the team as well.

I thank you in advance for your patience while this is addressed.

Please let us know if there is anything else we can assist you with.

Have a great weekend.

Warm regards,

ACX Client Support


I underlined "ACX created content should not be part of Kindle Unlimited," so we are all clear that this is a breach.

Funnily enough I joined KU a few months ago because I noticed you could enjoy audiobooks on some of the titles and I thought that was a great deal. However, I didn't for a second think that the author was not being compensated. If it turns out all authors are not being compensated for use of their audiobooks, then I'll cancel my membership and tell them why. Also a lot of my loyal readers will do the same they've assured me.

What I find bizarre is that my email to KDP was picked up by ACX as a dual response as per this email. So the theft of my intellectual property is being investigated by the same people who are also managing the department who stole it.

It's now ten days since I wrote to them and still my audiobook is being offered free with no notification to me. This is intellectual property theft. The rights to my audible are not bound to the rights of my eBook. I did not give permission by enrolling in Select for them to do a grab for my audiobook at no extra cost or without notification.

This comes hot on the heels of Amazon announcing their huge profits. I find this extraordinary behavior and I will continue to pursue this to the end and let you know.

I've scoured through every rule and sub-section on ACX and Select and nowhere does it refer to this bundling. Therefore this is absolute outright intellectual property theft. Write and demand you be compensated and ask for reports on the number of downloads.

When two of my books were placed in Prime Reads I was compensated pretty well in the four figure mark, well above several thousand. This is the same deal. If they include your audiobook in KU as a bonus to entice people to join or stay in KU (as it did with me), then you should be compensated.

The more authors who complain, the quicker we will get this sorted out. Oh, and do check your audiobooks to see if they have grabbed them. They only took one of mine and only in the USA. If this has happened to you, I suggest you don't take it lying down."

I took my own books out of KU over the Page Flip thing (if a KU reader reads my book in something called Page Flip on their Kindle, Amazon doesn't pay me for the pages the reader has read --I think it was costing me 50% of my page reads, other authors reported 75%) so since I'm not in KU anymore, it won't affect me.

[kozikowski]

Page Flip ..."digital equivalent of sticking your fingers in the book,"

So you get paid zippo if the reader doesn't finish the book?

Tell you what. For half price, I'll post the last page of the book. You can read most of it for free in Page Flip and then drop the publication while you read the last page from me on the cheap. What a deal!

Koz

[Lorain]

No, Amazon (supposedly) pays KU authors per the number of pages a reader reads in their book (yeah I know, kinda creepy Amazon is counting how many pages of a book you've read) --Amazon pays KU authors a little less than half a penny per page (actually read). However, when a reader reads the entire book in Page Flip, Amazon reports to the author that the reader only read ONE page of the book, and only pays the author for that one page, even though the reader actually read the whole book. My books are about 300 to 400 pages long, but when a KU reader would read an entire one in Page Flip, Amazon would only pay me for one page. Basically, while KU was raking in readers' subscription money, and letting them read my books, KU wasn't paying me for it.

I'm afraid you're too late for that skip-to-the-last-page scam. Many scammers entered books in KU with enticements to readers to skip to the last page ("Click here to win a free Kindle!!!") or hired click farms to "read" their books, all so they could rack up lotsa page reads for KU to pay them for. These authors were making tens of thousands of dollars a month out of KU with that. But recently Amazon cracked down on it, and has banned many authors for such shenanigans. You should hear their wailing crocodile tears!

[kozikowski]

New! and Improved! ways of using advanced technology to scam creatives out of their compensation.

Koz