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The Audiobook Scam Amazon Refuses to Fix
Freelance narrators, beware.
I’ve been working as a freelance audiobook narrator on ACX since 2013. Since then, I’ve produced nearly 200 audiobooks. I love the work. But lately, ACX is experiencing a serious issue with scammers.
If you’re not familiar with ACX, it’s Amazon’s self-publishing platform for audiobooks. Anyone who publishes a book on Amazon can post it to ACX and hire a freelance narrator (like me) to create their audiobook, which is then sold on Audible.
For the most part, my experience working with ACX has been positive. However, they’ve recently been having major issues with scams, and they don’t seem too concerned about fixing it.
TLDR; Dishonest people are stealing books and hiring freelance narrators to create audiobooks for a percentage of future royalties.
Eventually, the original author gets the audiobook taken down from Audible and the narrator doesn’t get paid for their work.
I first noticed this about a year ago. I searched through the available book auditions on ACX and came across a book by none other than Seth Godin.
At first, I was ecstatic. I mean, how cool would it be to narrate one of Seth Godin’s books?
But something didn’t feel right.
First of all, most well-known authors do not use ACX to produce their audiobooks. Instead, they typically work with audiobook production companies or well-known voice actors.
ACX is typically used by self-publishers and small publishing companies — so this was a red flag.
Second, the book was listed as a “royalty share” project. This means that the author and the narrator split the royalties from future sales rather than paying the narrator a flat rate for their work.
If you’re not familiar with Seth Godin, he sells a lot of books. Therefore, a royalty share agreement would NOT be in his best interest financially.
When I looked into this a bit further, I noticed that the Amazon listing linked to the book…
