The truth about Audible 'passive income' scams

DESCRIPTION: I'm seeing more and more Audible publishing scams claiming easy money and passive income. As a professional publisher, let me break it down for you.

UPDATE: The passive income scam relies on a legitimate Amazon/Audible service called ACX which bring publishers and narrators together to publish the audiobooks on Audible, which are in turn made available on Amazon to customers. The scammers are making money off of expensive "masterclasses", affiliate links, and crappy apps that supposedly unlock a flow of "passive income" from Audible/ACX. It's a complete lie. No one following advice like "hire a writer on Fiverr" to write a book or "download this app that will enable you to get paid $100/hour as a narrator" will meet with any success, and will likely get a stream of 2-star reviews on Amazon, copyright violations from the "authors" who scraped content off the web, and potentially permanent Amazon account bans.

Narrator Ian Lamont is an experienced Amazon, Shopify, and Etsy seller who has built two successful brands from scratch. He is also the creator of the Lean Media framework, which provides a new approach to innovation that reduces costs and risk while boosting the chances of making media that audiences love.

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[AwesomestGreatestMostestFunny]

FINALLY someone NOT talking about "Scams" while still pushing "Their" so called legit scam. Thank You!

[jmace]

As someone who made the mistake of trying to make money narrating on Audible I can tell you, 1) they pay you very little 2) they take their time paying 3) you edit the recording yourself, 4) Audible does nothing to promote your audiobook unless you pay them, and 5) the only good contracts go to people who are already famous narrators.

[msms]

And youtube does nothing to stop these scammers from advertising on their channel. Shows how much they value their viewers.

[brittanyhalstead]

Literally had a scam ad for passive audible content before the video. Thanks for your video!

[Dariyahhh]

Thank you. I was hoping someone would mention this scam. Sick of them dang audible commercials

[leonardodiversifolia]

Thank you. You tube is bombarding me with these ads. Today's version of the old "tiny classified ads" income scam. In fact every money making scam is really a scam to get you to pay for classes to teach you how to make money.. as if people who make a lot of money really want to sell seminars.

[acerthebest]

I think more people should see this before it becomes a really big problem. Thanks for your help.

[LeanMedia]

To be clear: The passive income scam relies on a legitimate Amazon/Audible service called ACX which bring publishers and narrators together to publish the audiobooks on Audible, which are in turn made available on Amazon to customers. The scammers are making money off of expensive "masterclasses", affiliate links, and crappy apps that supposedly unlock a flow of "passive income" from Audible/ACX. It's a complete lie. No one following advice like "hire a writer on Fiverr" to write a book or "download this app that will enable you to get paid $100/hour as a narrator" will meet with any success, and will likely get a stream of 2-star reviews on Amazon, copyright violations from the "authors" who scraped content off the web, and potentially permanent Amazon account bans.

[AndyLuu]

I'm SO glad I found this video! I have been getting a lot of the Audible scam ads on my feed and it's quite annoying. Thank you for sharing the facts!

[snielsen]

Kudos from a professional nerd
I have been tracking royalties for self-published authors since 2012 and I can tell you what Ian is saying is completely true. Now, the authors I work with make quite a lot of money on Audible and KDP, but it is the volume (quantity) of sales that allow them to make money, which means the book HAS to be well written, well edited, well narrated and promoted, all of which costs money! Generally authors start by self publishing on KDP, Nook, iTunes, Google, etc. to see if their book gets any traction. Only after its success on those platforms do they invest in a quality narrator and add their book to audible. THEN, it can still take years for the book to pay out against the narrator investment.
If it's too good to be true, it isn't true.

[OliviaMoon]

Thank you so much for bringing this to light. It's nice to see the actual percentages of royalties. I just finished watching their webinar, and there is no way this is possible to make thousands of dollars so passively. It was gross how salesy it was. Idk why all these guys sound the same with slimy advice. Makes me sick how they present themselves as trying to help others.

[chipcook]

I got tired of seeing the YT ads and when I searched YT, there you were. Thanks for the direct take.

[olutayodurodola]

Thanks for putting this together and sharing. I knew those audible publishing webinars were suspicious once they started mentioning partnerships and doing all the work for you, then you have to pay $2000 for a masterclass.

[angelachouinard]

Finally a place where these ads are called out as scams. You have a new subscriber. Trying to keep a friend from getting sucked in to this, you've given me the ammunition I need. Subscribed

[GiantFoamFinger]

Well said! A voice of clarity and sanity in a flood of scams out there. Thank you!!! Subscribed!

[corydalus]

Funny thing is, this video was preceded by an ad for making great passive income on Audible!

[chris]

Thanks for the public service announcement. I thought it was too good to be true when this lady in the Audible YouTube commercial kept showing her paper earning "statements" and say it is an easy process etc etc

[teacup]

Thank you for this. I got half way through a ‘webinar’ about creating cheap ‘dupe’ low quality non-fiction books and turned away. It felt very unethical.

Knowing audible is allowing this activity to go on is disappointing.

[MrDac]

thanks for this. i in fact stumnled yesterday on one of those promoting this and i was seriously considering it. you just save me a ton of wasted hours studying and probably venturing into this.

[expresschecks]

Ian... I am both a small time publisher on KDP and Audio Books publisher on (ACX) Audible...not going into details but you are 100% correct in your video you made. (I 2nd your opinion and the facts you pointed out) .. Making money on these platforms can be done BUT it's a slow process...takes times. Not a get quick Rich as these fraudsters advertise.. cheers