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We Don't Need Amazon - Over 1,500 Audiobooks Added to AALBC


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100 New Audio Books You’ll Love ♥
100 New Audio Books You’ll 

 

When I started my boycott of Amazon over a year ago.  I was fully prepared to completely give up my stream of income from selling books online.  The boycott forced me to consider other options and that was one of the top 3 things I ever did with this website!

 

I not only did selling books directly dramatically increase my revenue through online book sales, I also get my customer information which Amazon kept for themselves -- never sharing with affiliates.  Sure, it is much more labor intensive physically, and administratively, selling books directly, but the revenue, from book sales, is an order of magnitude higher -- more sales and larger orders. I've hired someone to do the extra work.  

 

I'm able to sell audiobooks through a partnership with Libro.fm. I've already made more money with Libro.fm, in less than 6 months, than I did selling Amazon's Audbile ebooks and subscriptions in the past decade!  Libro.fm shares customer information with their partners too!

 

I recently started working with Hummingbird to sell ebooks. Unlike Amazon's ebooks, which you can only read on a Kindle; you can read your hummingbird's ebooks on ANY platform -- including the Kindle.

 

Libro.fm may begin selling eBooks too.  If they do, I will like switch over to them.

 

As far as buying books that are not showcased on AALBC, you can always use Bookshop.org. They share 10% of the book's price with AALBC. 

 

You do not need Amazon. Boycott them for your book buying needs and improve the book ecosystem -- especially for Black books.

 

Look, the pandemic is going to kill some Black-owned bookstores.  A miracle occurred in late May, and white folks flooded Black owned bookstores, like AALBC, with record levels of sales.  Some stores, overwhelmed, could not handle the surge, and did not benefit from the store-saving business.  To be clear we will still lose some Black owned books stores, due to the pandemic.

 

Bookshop.org helped some stores by giving them a platform to sell books on the web, but those sales do not benefit the stores nearly as much as being able to sell books directly.  Unfortunately, most Black-owned bookstores do not have the ability to sell books on the web, if they do, they don't have the ability to scale.  

 

Over the long term Black-owned book stores and websites like AALBC continue to need your business not just to survive but to grow. The last 12 month has been phenomenal for AALBC. Records in every measurable category: traffic, book sales, and advertising -- during a global pandemic no less!

 

This is ONLY because some of you have chosen AALBC over Amazon -- full stop!  This has allowed AALBC to improve tremendously!  Readers, authors, and publishers all benefit for having an additional platform celebrating Black literature.

 

 

 

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Guest Samuel Layne

Hi Troy :

 

yes I am a member. I am keen to sell my book everywhere including Amazon and worldwide. How do I list my book on blackbook stores and on your site? How can my audiobook just launched on Audible, Amazon and ITunes make your 100 list? (Link to amazon removed)

 

Maybe they ought to be a #BlackPepleReadScienceHereToo. Black people care about Climate Change too; about a sixth mass extinction too and about climate change-driven pandemics too but it seems like none those 100 address any of that. How does that help black people?

 

check out the following: https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2020/08/04/blackinneuro-blackinchem-can-hashtags-help-black-scientists-build-community-spotlight-excellence/5541431002/ .

 

Black people also read many other genres so I would like to see some of the genres these imply on your site and in black bookstores too.

 

Samuel

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@daniellegfny AALBC sells Audiobooks, but as an affiliate of Libro.fm. I send readers to an AALBC page on Libro.fm who actually collect payment and manage the audiobook files, handle DR, etc. Libro is not just an alternative to Audible, I'd argue they are a superior alternative.

 

That said:

 

Check out Libro's page for authors  

 

Libro currently work with a couple partners to make it possible to sell audiobooks through AALBC and roughly 1,200 bookstores.

 

If you'd like to produce your own audiobooks, the best way to get them on Libro.fm is to partner with Authors Republic

 

If they need help with production, check out Findaway Voices

 

Libro also works with Ingram CoreSource Plus  and Zebralution 

 

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  • 3 months later...

@daniellegfny for someone looking to sell more than 10K copies of their book you really can't to turn down promotional opportunities 😉

 

 

AALBC's primary focus is on physicals books.  Right now, for a variety of reasons, Libro is my partner for audio books. One reason is technical -- they have given me API access, so adding their audiobooks to AALBC was easy. 

 

That said, post the product link to your book in Akoobooks, I'm always interested in working with Indie, Black-owned business.  Maybe I can incorporate them into AALBC.

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  • 2 weeks later...

There is an ongoing thread on kboards about ACX stealing from authors with their return policy on audiobooks.  Apparently they promote heavily to their members on Audible that they can exchange book purchases up to a year after purchase.  In doing so, ACX would take the royalty away from the author and not give an accounting to the author how often this was done.  Starting in January, ACX has agreed to only do this for 7 days after purchase; which is still not good as someone could listen to the audiobook and return by then.

 

They are doing this in order to keep and expand their monthly membership fees at the expense of the authors.

 

I have 3 audiobooks on Audible (under another name); with the most popular ones having 2-3 years left before I can remove them.  I will be publishing my next one elsewhere.

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