Bookcast Episode 126: Pondering: Platform Fatigue & Delisting

Books I Read This Week:

• Crash (Love in Scrubs series) - C. Monet
• Witness 8 (Eddie Flynn #8) - Steve Cavanaugh
• Departures and Arrivals (Flights and Feelings Book 2) - Nicole Falls
• Rounds (Love in Scrubs Book 2) - Monica Walters
• Promise: A Small Town Second Chance Cowboy Romance - J. Westenberry

Currently Reading: Disciplined - Mark Avery Reading Goal: 117 of 175 books (67% complete, 5 books ahead)

What I'm Watching: Colombiana, Die Hard sequels, Hallmark mysteries on TV. YouTube favorites include Dollar Tree Dinners, Reliving Single podcast, and documentaries.

Writing Update: Taking a fiction break until mid-September. Finished my Awesome August fanfiction stories.

Main Topic: I'm dealing with platform fatigue and considering delisting from Audible and Google Play. Audible earned me only $68 in 8 months while Findaway earned $170+. Google Play made me just $20 all year. I'm questioning if big platforms with tiny returns are worth my energy.

Full show notes and links available at booksbydlwhite.com/bookcast/126

Transcript

DL White [00:00:00]:
Foreign hello, hello and welcome back to the book cast. We are back in the studio, also known as a closet in my house recording episode 126 of my podcast where I talk about reading and writing, Black love and real life as a self published author Author. If you're new here. Hi welcome. Love to have you settle in. I am DL White. I'm an Atlanta based author, reader and storyteller. And if you like this podcast or podcast like it, the best way to support me and those podcasts is by buying the books.

DL White [00:00:43]:
You can find mine@booksbydlwhite.com shop. You'll find ebook and audiobook there to browse and buy at your leisure as you do. You'll also find print editions on my bookshop.org shelf. So you're supporting indie bookstores and me at the same time. Time. We like that. We like that a lot. We've got a little bit to go through today, so let's get down with it.

DL White [00:01:06]:
Today is Sunday, August 24th. I'm in Atlanta with a mic, a drink and way too many thoughts. So let's get into it. All right, all right. All right. I hope your break was delightful. Mine was. I have a little snack actually because I'm kind of hungry.

DL White [00:01:52]:
Today's beverage is a fruit 2o protein drink mixed with Sprite Zero and a little bit of Simply Zero sugar lemonade over ice cream over here. We're staying hydrated and caffeinated. Sometimes you need like a little fizzy, fizzy protein combo to get yourself through the day. Then have a little snack because like I said, I'm hungry. I got some Ritz crackers and I love black olives. I don't, I don't know what that is, but it's just the salty. It's the. I don't know.

DL White [00:02:19]:
So it's crackers and black olives is what we have going on here. Anyway, that is not where you tune into this podcast to hear, but if you enjoyed it and you want to share your snack, I'm all for that. So send it over. Let's roll over to the book report because if I'm going to do anything, I'm going to. What? Read a book. I am at 117 of my 175 book goal. To read in 100 and to read in 2025. Wow.

DL White [00:02:48]:
Speaking today is a challenge. I am 67% toward my goal. So more than halfway there. I am five books ahead of schedule. Everything is lovely in that direction. What I read this week, I read Crash Love and Scrubs by C. Monet. I think I talked about that last week.

DL White [00:03:07]:
This Love and Scrubs series is my total jam catnip. I've read two books in this so far. I'll talk about the other one in just a little bit, but Crash was pretty good by C. Monet. I also finished Witness 8, which is Eddie Flynn number 8 by Steve Cavanaugh. Still working my way through his backlist. He is still amazing. And I found another person who loves Steve Kavanaugh so I can't wait to like Kiki and giggle about his books as you do.

DL White [00:03:33]:
When it's a legal thriller, there's always some Kiki and some giggling about legal thrillers. And then I read Departures and Arrivals, Flights and Feelings, Book two by Nicole Falls, and then Rounds, which is Love and Scrubs, Book two by Monica Walters. I got that read and then Promise A Small Town Second Chance Cowboy Romance by Janelle Westenberry rounded out my week. I am currently reading Disciplined by Mark Avery. This is also this is a thriller. I don't think it's a legal thriller. I'm still not quite sure what it's about. I did read the blurb, but I'm very much read on vibes anyway.

DL White [00:04:08]:
I've been hearing a lot about Mark Avery. Discipline is on a lot of TBRs and so I just need to get through it. The other book I want to get through is Dominion because I'm hearing a lot about it and you know me, I don't like to read books once they get hyped a lot and I feel like the hype train is about to get chugging. So I'm going to also pick up Dominion today and try to get that read this week. I'm not doing any challenges. I'm not. I don't have any theme months or weeks. It's just literally about putting books into my face, which is a thing I enjoy streaming wise.

DL White [00:04:41]:
I have been in the TV a little bit recently. I have the Tubi app on my Roku and so I just dialed it up recently and I watched Columbiana with I think it's Zoe Saldana. That was pretty good. I like a female assassin. I like a woman that like knows all the spy stuff and all the like I, you know, I set a bomb to go off under your chair cause it's pressure set, whatever. I like all that stuff and then I just didn't change the channel and so Die Hard like three or four or whatever came on and I love me some Bruce Willie so I just let that Play. I've been watching bits and pieces of Hallmark mysteries. They're kind of hit or miss for me.

DL White [00:05:24]:
I don't know that I would ever pay for the channel, but like, you know, some of it is a little. Some of it's a little simple for me, but also easy watching. I just have not made it through really any other really good movies. I think I might hit up Lifetime Movie Network and see if there's anything good on there. Something along the lines of the one I watched with Nicole, Ari Parker and Boas. Boas. Wow. Boris Kojo.

DL White [00:05:54]:
I really liked that. And I would like to find more movies along that vein. Send me your suggestions because y' all know I am all about sticking my head in the sand and not watching the news. I'm joking. I don't watch the news. But I do try to keep up on what's going on. But in order to retain my sanity and not develop an ulcer, I kind of seek it out. When I want to find out what's going on, I just, I can't concentrate on it all the time.

DL White [00:06:20]:
And so my way of not doom scrolling and staying away from cable news channels is to get all up into my to be watched list. The other things I'm looking at, I'm heavily a YouTube user. Yes, I pay for YouTube Premium. I don't even feel it. I'll be honest, I don't even feel it. Dollar Tree Dinners. Because I love a budget hack and I just moved into a house and so yeah, those $150 Instacart orders have to come to an end at some point. So might get into a little bit of meal planning and just seeing like what I can get from these stores that don't charge $8 for a little thing of like Hellman's mayonnaise.

DL White [00:07:03]:
Anyhow, Dollar Tree Dinners. I love following her on TikTok and just started following her on YouTube because there's some like, longer form videos and some cooking videos and a little bit of lifestyle. I just, I love her. I don't even know her name. I just know her as Dollar Tree Dinners. But I'm really getting into that. I watched a couple of her videos. I've been getting into the reliving single podcast and also Michelle Obama and her brother totally forgot his name.

DL White [00:07:32]:
It like just escaped my brain. Anyway, the omg. No. Oh, in my opinion, imo. Podcast. Omg. Imo. Whatever.

DL White [00:07:41]:
They had Dwayne Wade and Gabrielle Union on. Now, y' all know I'm not a big Gabrielle Union fan, but I Watched it and it was, it was, you know, it was, it was, it was. It was good. It was good. And then I also watched Houseguest with Scott Evans with his guest this week, Regina King. And y' all know I love me some Regina king ever since 227. Love, love, love her. She was such a great guest.

DL White [00:08:08]:
And I'm not a wine drinker, but I do want to try the new wine she has developed in memory of her son Ian called Me. And U m I A N u. It's like an orange ish flavor, so I might look for it. I don't know. I'm not a wine drinker though, so, you know, like, I gotta mix it with like a little like Sprite or some fruit juice to kind like I feel like alcohol kicks me in and like, why would I sign up for that, you know? So anyway, on the documentary watch, I watched how the Digital Revolution is Killing Books. Slash out of Print by Journeyman Pictures. Very revelant. Revelant.

DL White [00:08:46]:
Relevant. I cannot speak today. Very relevant to my interest as a reader and an author. Definitely sparked some thoughts about the industry. I believe this is. It's a little bit older, but a good watch. We got like Jeff Bezos with a little bit of hair and when he was only a little bit of an a hole and a lot of an a hole. Um, so that's a good watch if you can find it.

DL White [00:09:10]:
I watched it on YouTube and you know, I love a good documentary. If this is like 30, 45 minutes on YouTube, I'm probably gonna watch it. I watch a lot of stuff on like autism and Alzheimer's, Huntington's disease. Again, like I said, you know, a couple weeks ago. Fits a drug documentary on like, you know, meth, opioids, any marijuana. Marijuana bores me. It's just, it's not, it's not dangerous enough. I love Frontline if it's on Front Line.

DL White [00:09:43]:
If it's a financial doc, I'm all up into it. So if I see it on YouTube, I add it to my watch later channel. And then during the day I kind of go through that list while I'm like working or whatever. It's a good way to get through your to be read to be watched list. Now I do want to say I do have a to be read list of like articles and stuff. If I come across like an article or a good substack and I don't have time to read it, I will add it to Instapaper. And then about once a week I go through my Insta paper list and it will read those articles out loud. And so I like to clear that out like while I'm driving to and from work or like on my lunch break or you know, whatever.

DL White [00:10:23]:
If I don't feel like reading a book, I know I need to go through my Insta paper and clear all those articles and stuff out. Oh, you know how you see a good article while you're on Threads or Blue sky or whatever and you don't have time to read it but you know you need to save it, adding it to Instapaper and it will be there until you get rid of it. Okay, moving to our writing and publishing update which is going to be very brief because I'm not writing right now. I am taking a breather from fiction entirely right now. I don't have. I'm not working on any commercial projects until like mid September maybe. I'm truly, I'm really and truly tired. I'm really and truly tired of thinking and plotting and everything.

DL White [00:11:12]:
Tired. So I am promoting missing persons right now. I'm not writing anything new. I am thinking about Potter Lake 4 though that's coming up. And so I need to get at my editor to figure out how I can get on her calendar in November. When do I have to have this thing done? Because if it's not done by X date it's not coming in 2025 because I'm not going to shove anything into December except a holiday short which I typically would not send through an editor because editing be expensive. So I my best to self edit those and push them out. On the fan fiction front I did finish my awesome August stories.

DL White [00:11:52]:
It got some pretty good reactions. I'm very happy and I did tell them I am not posting this for grins and giggles. I need comments, I need reactions, I need thoughts and prayers. All of them. Post them here. And so I did get some good comments on it ended on kind of an iffy note but I just, I'm tired. I'm just, I'm tired. And so I got the last chapter out yesterday.

DL White [00:12:16]:
It's pretty, it's. It's par for the course as fan fiction goes. It's a, it's a sex filled chapter and the people will be happy to read that because they, they like that. OneNote is a person that writes stories on the archive that I own and operate. Has been writing through her loved one being on hospice and it's a place where they can come and write and emote and like kind of keep a story going as a I guess as a. Not. Not so much a distraction, but. Or even an escape, but like something she can find comfort in while going through those, you know, long, hard nights and want to issue, you know, my condolences to that member as that loved one did succumb to their disease.

DL White [00:13:09]:
And, you know, I'm intensely happy that. Not happy, but proud that we have a place where somebody can come and find, you know, comfort and solace and, you know, feel our arm, our arms around them and allow them to be able to do something else besides be a caretaker for however long, you know, it took them to read that story. So I just read that update today, and, you know, while I'm extremely sad for the loss of a loved one, it did give me, you know, a little bit of pause to just think about how special a place the archive has become to be that kind of thing. And fan fiction was something that I turned to when we lost my baby brother. We lost him in 2008, and NSync was just something that made me happy. And so I started really. I mean, I was always a fan since the very beginning, since I first saw those faces and heard those voices, and I looked into Lance Bass Green Eyes and heard that bass, and I just was in love with all of them. And they were just.

DL White [00:14:29]:
Their music makes me happy. And listening to them has always been a comfort. And I leaned hard into that when I lost my brother. And being able to write fan fiction and, like, just being able to lean into something that offers you comfort and lets you forget and because we can't sell fan fiction, and so I don't even think about, is this marketable and will this hit my audience? And is this, you know, written the right way? Are the tropes right? I don't. I don't think about that kind of stuff when I am writing fan fiction. I think my readers are really going to like this chapter. And to me, that practice and that kind of attitude has saved me when I'm trying to write commercial fiction, because the thought process is entirely, wholly different when I am writing something that I am trying to sell. So, anyhow, that's my little aside on the fanfiction Archive.

DL White [00:15:32]:
All of that. The story is done. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't anything deep. There's not really much story development. It was just literally just four chapters, like an entire day, you know, so that's done. So our main topic this week is something I've been thinking about for a little bit, and it's basically on platform fatigue and the decision to delist from a platform. And since I'm taking a break from producing words and I have some time for navel gazing and shoring things up, working on my website, stuff like that. Stuff like that always gets me thinking about my numbers.

DL White [00:16:14]:
How I can be more efficient, how I can streamline things and how I can, how I can be doing the most with the least, you know, does that. I don't know if that makes sense. So two things are happening. One is Audible and the other is Google Books. The deal with Audible is, for years, the way they paid authors was very straightforward. If somebody bought your audiobook with a credit, you got a cut of the sale price. If your books weren't exclusive to Audible like mine. My books are not exclusive to audible.

DL White [00:16:49]:
You got 25%. If they were exclusive, you got 40%. Not amazing, but you know, it's something. At least you know what you're getting now. They don't get paid for anything really by hosting the books. They don't write the books, they don't, I mean, they don't pay for narration, they don't edit the books, they don't do anything but host the books. So they take, you know, 75% of revenue just to have your book listed at Audible. So that's the first thing that sticks in my cross.

DL White [00:17:24]:
Now, Audible has recently changed their system. So instead of paying based on the price of your book, they move to a big subscription pot. Everybody's membership fees goes into one pool. Audible is like, I forget how much Audible is a month, like $12.99, $16.99, something I don't remember. So authors get paid out based on how many minutes listeners spend on your books compared to everything else in the catalog. So on paper their percentages look better. 30% non exclusive, 50% exclusive. But the catch is that the actual payout per listen is a lot smaller.

DL White [00:18:03]:
So before, if someone spent a credit on my $20 audiobook, I'd see about five bucks from that. Under the new model, that same listen might be worth a dollar too. And because the pool is shared across everything in Audible's library, now do I need to remind you that I write black romance? And so the only people that are going to be looking for my books, readers. Which is probably a very small percentage of readers at Audible. Under the new model, the pool is shared across everything in Audible's library, including all the AI narrated and low quality stuff they've been added. So that pie gets thinner and thinner. So even though Audible can say they've Raised royalties. What they have really done is lowered author earnings.

DL White [00:18:51]:
If you have books in Audible like I have books in Audible, you'll probably notice royalty checks getting smaller even if your sales look the same. It's a reminder to me that we cannot count on these platforms to have our best interests in mind. Amazon especially. We have to be smart about where we put our books and how we encourage people to buy them. So I'm looking at my numbers and reality is kind of setting in. From January through August this year, I made $68 and some change at audible. Well, through ACX, that's it for five audiobooks in the same stretch of time. I've made like 170 some through Findaway.

DL White [00:19:37]:
And like Findaway pushes my books out everywhere. Libraries, Spotify, Apple, Chirp. So those sales are spread across multiple channels. And I haven't even counted audio that I sell direct through Book Funnel because I kind of find it hard to separate the ebooks from the audiobook sales there. But I also sell those books through Book Funnel. So is this platform really working for me? Audible is supposed to be the elephant in the room, the biggest audiobook seller in the world. But it pays me less than half of what I'm getting from a distributor that isn't locked into the ecosystem. And it's not because my books have suddenly stopped being appealing.

DL White [00:20:19]:
It's because Audible keeps moving the goalposts, and every change seems to make it harder for independent authors to see a fair. So at this point, I have to ask myself, is it worth it to keep my books on Audible? Should I focus on platforms that actually pay me? Because $68 in eight months does not scream worth the hassle. The other thing I'm dealing with is Google Play. It's not a much of a better situation over there. I've made about $20 all year. I typically don't make a lot of money at Google Play. I actually celebrate when I get a deposit from Google Play. It's very much pocket change.

DL White [00:20:56]:
The only books really moving on that platform are the free ones. There's not read through, they're not picking up the other books in the series. It's great for downloads, but downloads don't pay any bills. I have stopped becoming really enamored and excited about a whole bunch of free downloads because these days it doesn't mean anything. It literally means that a bunch of freebie seekers came and grabbed my book for free. They're grabbing it and they might save it and they might read it and they might not, or they might read it and they don't have any interest in reading the next book in the series. So again, I'm back in the same headspace. Do I leave my books there for the sake of visibility? Because being on Google Play might mean I show up in search results and sometimes that matters.

DL White [00:21:41]:
Or do I pull them and stop splitting my attention across platforms that aren't really delivering? I mean, I don't know that there's a perfect answer. Right now it feels like Audible and Google are giving me the same headache in different fonts. Big names, tiny returns. And the questions, you know, are they worth the energy? Am I better off doubling down on places like find a way where the income is small or smaller, but at least it's steady and growing and like the fact that I'm making. So if I look at my royalties, I make as much or more at every outlet outside of Amazon Flash acx as I make inside of that ecosystem. So what I look at, I look at right now, I look at my royalties, and I'm basically 50. 50. There's, you know, half the pie is Amazon and the other half is everything else.

DL White [00:22:37]:
That's Book Funnel. That's everything I distribute through Draft two Digital. That's direct. That's everything. Everything else makes up half of that pie. And so I know I don't want to pull my ebooks from Amazon, but audiobooks, especially if they're, if they're talking about paying even less money, I might pull those. Now the other thing that I might do is pull my free book from Google and have everything else there available for sale, because I have audiobooks at Google, I have ebooks at Google. You know, I don't, I just, I, I don't know.

DL White [00:23:19]:
On paper, I feel like the choice looks obvious. I can, I need to stick with a platform that pays me. It's not always that simple, though, because Audible still has name recognition, it still has reach, it still might bring in readers who wouldn't find me otherwise. I mean, at $68 for the year, I don't know how many more readers it's going to find. But, like, I don't know. It's $68 I didn't have before, though, you know, so I have, I really have the same. I have the same questions about everand because a lot of my books, you know, have been pulled from there. And I'm not anything new that I release.

DL White [00:23:53]:
I'm not putting on everand because it's kind of a waste. It's a waste of time. If my books are never going to be available there to borrow. There's no sense in putting them there. So I'm kind of in decision mode. Do I pull my books, put my energy into channels that are showing better results? Do I leave them up for visibility and hope they trickle in a few new listeners? This is for me, the kind of thing I have to sit with. I have to do my puts and takes. I have to make sure I'm not walking away from something valuable and I have to make sure it's not something that I am going to regret.

DL White [00:24:23]:
And it's like it's not that I would ever delete all my material, but I can definitely unpublish it and see if things improve for me. Between audible giving me 68 bucks in eight months, Google Play trickling in $20 a year, find a way actually paying me something close to what feels like the effort. Kind of at a crossroads. So I don't have that answer today. This is one of those things I'm going to sleep on. If you've had better look at Audible or if you have cracked the code on selling at Google Play, I would love to hear it. Right now all I see are big platforms that don't care too much about the little guy. That's kind of where I'm at with it and I'll think on it.

DL White [00:25:10]:
I might ponder it here and there and then I might might get a wild hair up my butt and just delist them in the middle of the night. See how that goes. Like do September, October, November, December without those books on those platforms and see where I end up. I don't know. Well, that brings us to the end of today's episode. I'm hungry. I'm gonna make me some food and settle in, edit this episode and get it up. Maybe watch another movie on Tubi.

DL White [00:25:41]:
I don't know. I've got my whole Sunday night ahead of me. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you so much for spending time with me here today. If you did enjoy this episode, please Share it, Rate it, Leave a comment wherever you're listening Apple, Spotify, Substack, YouTube, you know, wherever you have where, wherever wherever you at. Full show notes, transcripts and links will be available at books by dlwhite.com bookcast126 also on my my substack and author dlwhite.substack.com you can support this podcast by shopping my books@booksbydlwhite.com shop or you can buy me a copy@buymeacoffee.com books by DL White or at Booksprout. Oh it's I think it's Bookcast. Buzzsprout.com you can also support the podcast directly there.

DL White [00:26:30]:
You can share this podcast or join that newsletter. You can find all Those links@booksbydlwhite.com linkinbio so many big huge thanks to my monthly supporters at Buzzsprout and the people that occasionally buy me a coffee. You all keep this mic turned on. The Book House is written, produced and edited by me, DL White. Theme music and any sound effects you might have heard are from Pixabay. I will be back next week. I might do a little Q and A or Amazon since I have time and I am taking a break from producing words. What do you want to know? What are your burning questions? What can I guide you on? Do you have suggestions of things for me to be watching so that I do not watch the news? Send them to me.

DL White [00:27:16]:
You can find my email address on my link in bio page. Booksbydlwhite.com link in bio until then, be well. Read some something good and I will talk to you so soon. Bye bye SA.