Audible’s new proposed royalty structure is a slap in the face to authors, readers who care about them, and exactly opposite of what they promised Brandon Sanderson barely a year ago.
It is an attempt to seize a monopoly by punishing authors until they agree to exclusivity, which would drive Audible’s competitors out of the market.
I quit buying books from Amazon last year and will never go back. I will say it is extremely annoying to buy ebooks elsewhere because we are a mixed device household so I have to jump through hoops to get the ebook on whichever device. I actually had to sign out of the kindle completely to make it work the way I wanted, (only show the books I have loaded on it and nothing else) but now it prompts me to log back in every time I switch books.
I hope we get to see the day of DRM free ebooks that we can use however we want.
Might I recommend the free software Caliber? It can strip DRM off of ebooks. It’s not as good as buying them without it to begin with, but it’s a solution.
https://calibre-ebook.com/
I also recommend this one
https://getlibation.com/
I used it to get my audiobooks out of my Amazon account before deleting it.