Amazon KDP Is NOT as Bad as This Company

About this video

Dale argues that Amazon KDP’s problems pale compared to ACX for audiobooks. He compares suspensions and terminations on both platforms — ambiguous violation notices, guilty-until-proven-innocent treatment, flawed vetting, and email-only support that leaves creators going in circles. On pricing, he says KDP pays 70% for ebooks priced between $2.99 and $9.99 and 35% outside that range, while on ACX authors do not set the price at all because ACX sets it by length. He says exclusive ACX pays 40%, non-exclusive pays 25%, and ACX distributes only to Amazon, Audible and Apple, with Apple providing 25% of each sale through ACX before a 40/60 split in ACX’s favor. He contrasts KDP’s seven-day return window with ACX’s 365-day window, where authors were responsible for the first 90 days regardless of consumption, and describes abuse of returns. He also covers manipulation false positives on KDP Select page reads, the ACX bounty link program and its vetting burden, the CreateSpace merge into KDP around September 2018 where authors lost titles, covers and metadata, and Audiblegate around October 2020 when returns were deducted all at once. He closes on abuse such as low-content spam, review swapping and Kindle Vella manipulation on KDP, and on ACX ‘ghost audio’ schemes and rights infringement, while saying he will cautiously continue using ACX because it is the most direct path to Amazon and Audible.

Key takeaways

• KDP pays 70% for ebooks priced $2.99-$9.99 and 35% outside that range, per Dale
• ACX sets audiobook prices by length; Dale says exclusive pays 40% and non-exclusive pays 25%
• KDP has a seven-day return window versus ACX’s 365-day window, with authors responsible for the first 90 days
• Both platforms give ambiguous suspension/termination notices with email-only support and a guilty-until-proven-innocent approach
• Audiblegate around October 2020 involved returns being deducted all at once, leaving some account holders with negative balances

Episode details: published September 13, 2022 · 13:25 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dale L. Roberts’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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