I’m so excited to work with Zachary Porter and I can’t wait for you all to read his amazing book, No Crows. He signed his contract today! 🎉

I truly love this book and Zach’s writing will hit you in all the feels. Seriously, this man has a gift and it’s wonderful to be a part of his journey. Plus, No Crows is just such a fun, atmospheric story! This Appalachian fantasy has all the elements and I’m so proud that it’s my first acquisition for Quill & Flame’s Obsidian line. Coming in 2027.

Please congratulate Zach on this amazing achievement. 📚✍🏻 And be sure to follow him on social media and cheer him on. We all need encouraged, no matter what stage we’re in. And, even though this is a high point for Zach, he’s taken some really hard hits lately. So, my beautiful Chain Breakers and otherwise, rally around! 💪Truly, it’s a jungle out there, and isn’t it nice to find a kindred spirit and books you love?

Instagram: @zacharyporterauthor

zacharyporterauthor.com

Also, here’s the feature he recently did for Writing Day Workshops:

https://www.writingdayworkshops.com/blog/reclaiming-ground-zachary-porter-on-voice-the-right-to-want-and-what-the-mountains-still-hold

Pour the tea. This one has a calendar attached.

If you have audiobooks on Audible through ACX, you have a decision to make before the year ends. Not a “we’ll look at it in January” decision. Audible is retiring the old royalty model. By the end of 2026, every title still on the legacy terms either moves to the new model or comes off Audible.

I had my second novel produced through ACX, so this one affects me and I have a decision to make.

ACX said it in plain language:

“By end of year, the legacy royalty model will be discontinued. By that time, you must either choose to enroll your titles in the new model or discontinue distribution if you prefer.”

Enrollment opened to all creators on May 26, 2026. New titles claimed after that date are already on the new math. Legacy titles are not. Those are the ones sitting in dashboards waiting for a human being to click.

There is no third option. You cannot keep 40 percent of a sale the way you have since ACX launched. You enroll, or you leave.

What they are selling you

Under the old ACX terms, exclusive titles paid 40 percent. Non-exclusive titles paid 25 percent. Under the new model those rates become 50 percent exclusive and 30 percent non-exclusive.

Exclusive and non-exclusive here are about where you are allowed to sell the same audiobook, not about the new royalty math itself.

Exclusive (50 percent under the new model)

You give ACX the only right to distribute that audiobook. Audible then puts it on Audible, Amazon, and Apple Books. That is the whole storefront. You may not sell that same audio file anywhere else — not Spotify, not Kobo, not Google Play, not library suppliers, not Libro.fm, not your own website, not a USB at a signing.

You get the higher Audible cut because you agreed not to compete with them.

Non-exclusive (30 percent under the new model)

Audible still sells the book on Audible, Amazon, and Apple Books, but you keep the right to sell that same audiobook everywhere else. You take a smaller slice from Audible because they are no longer the only pipe.

What that does not mean

Exclusive does not mean “Audible only.” Apple Books is inside ACX’s exclusive network.

Exclusive does not mean “you enrolled in the new royalty model.” Those are two different choices. You can be exclusive on the old terms or exclusive on the new terms. Same with wide.

Non-exclusive does not mean the book leaves Audible. It stays. You just also get to put it wide.

In one sentence: 50 percent exclusive means a higher Audible paycheck, locked to their shelves. 30 percent non-exclusive means a smaller Audible paycheck, free to sell the audio everywhere else.

What else they are offering

You can suggest a price. You get denser earnings statements. And for the first time, ACX titles can be opted into Audible’s all-you-can-listen catalog and earn when a member streams instead of burning a credit.

Audible’s early-access pitch is sunny. After four months with a selected group of creators, they said those earliest adopters saw an average increase in earnings of around 45 percent compared with the old model. They also reported a 109 percent increase in unit transactions, an 85 percent increase in paid listening hours, and almost double the listeners. Authors they quoted are happy:

“Overall, these changes have improved both monetization and visibility across my catalog.” — Hunter Blain

“With AYCL, I’m now seeing a much quicker return, which has encouraged me to expand my audio library.” — Bruno Miller

“My titles have also received hundreds of additional reviews since enrolling in the new royalty model.” — Jennifer Peel

Those figures are Audible’s. They describe the early-access group, not every catalog. Cash purchases still pay a percent of net receipts. That part did not become a mystery. Membership listening did.

Why some authors are mad or removing their books

They are not mostly mad about 50 percent versus 40 percent. They are mad about what the percentage is applied to, and that Audible is making the old deal disappear.

The old deal was simple. A listener spent a credit on your book. You got a cut of that sale. Forty percent exclusive, twenty-five percent wide. You could roughly predict a month from “how many people bought the book.”

The new deal pools the money. Audible takes the member’s monthly plan fee, minus taxes and fees, adds the value of any extra credits, then divides that pot across every title the member engaged with that month, weighted by each title’s a la carte price. Your 50 percent is 50 percent of your slice of that pot, not 50 percent of your book’s price.

So if someone spends a credit on your novel and also streams three all-you-can-listen titles the same month, part of the value that used to travel with that credit now travels with those other listens. The customer thought they bought you. The royalty file treats it like a buffet.

That is the core grievance. Robin Sullivan put it in the petition a lot of authors signed: the fine print “hurts authors and circumvents listeners’ intention.” Michael J. Sullivan said he asked Audible to stop splitting credit value into the streaming pool, they said no, and he was “shocked and dismayed.”

The other reasons authors are pulling their books

They cannot fully check the math. Audible published the logic and calls the result Member Value. They have not published every input — plan fees after discounts, “costs and other adjustments,” how engagement is counted — in a form you can recreate with a calculator and last month’s listens. A higher rate on a pool you cannot independently audit feels like a raise you are not allowed to verify.

They think the contract was changed in the middle. Many older ACX exclusive deals were written for seven years. Audible’s position now is: enroll in the new model by year-end or come off the store. Authors who still have time left on the old paper hear that as “accept new payment terms or lose the listing,” not as a voluntary upgrade.

Income gets less predictable. Credit-heavy midlist books — one listener, one title, one payment — can earn less even at 50 percent, because that credit is no longer ring-fenced. Series that get binged in all-you-can-listen may earn more. Nobody can promise which pile you are in until you have lived inside the new statements.

All-you-can-listen is not a sale. Opting in can mean more ears and more reviews. It can also mean your expensive, hours-long production is paid like a stream once someone clears a listening threshold. For a long book, that threshold is thirty minutes. Some authors do not want their flagship used as catalog filler. Enrollment in the new royalty model and opting a title into AYCL are also two different clicks. Audible curates which opted-in titles actually land in the catalog.

They do not trust what happens next. If the pot is shared across everything a member plays, then more cheap or AI-narrated audio in that catalog could mean a thinner slice for everyone else. That fear is ahead of the data, but it is why some people will not lock a backlist into the new system.

So why remove the book instead of clicking enroll?

Because the only way to keep the old royalty math is to leave. Audible is discontinuing the legacy model by the end of 2026. Stay and you are on Member Value. Go and you keep the file for Spotify, libraries, direct sales, other stores — at the cost of Audible’s audience.

Authors who pull titles are usually saying one of these things:

I will not let a credit sale be diluted by someone else’s binge.

I will not accept a payment method I cannot audit.

I still have a contract that says the old rate, and I will not pretend this is optional.

Audible was never most of my audio income. Wide distribution matters more than their shelf.

Some early-access authors did earn more and like the extra listens. Both things can be true. The anger is not “Audible offered 50 percent.” The anger is “they raised the rate, changed the unit of payment, set a deadline, and called that a choice.”

There’s a new imprint at Penguin Random House UK called Dusk.

It launched today. First books this fall.

It’s a new-adult crossover list. Romance at the center. Fantasy welcome. Built for readers who do not stay in their lane—people who bounce between YA, new adult, and adult without asking permission first.

Carmen McCullough is publisher. Amina Parchment-Youssef is editorial director.

McCullough’s said this:

Some of the most exciting energy in publishing is coming from readers who don’t see themselves—or their tastes—in traditional categories. They move between YA, new adult, and adult. Between romance and fantasy. They find books through friends, creators, and online communities.

That is not a vibe statement. That is a buying statement.

If you have been told your book is “too old for YA and too young for adult,” or “too romantic for fantasy” or “too fantastical for romance,” this is the industry finally naming the shelf you’ve already been writing toward.

A few things to consider:

1. This is UK, not a US imprint clone.

Do not rewrite your query tomorrow as if every New York house just opened the same door. Watch what they acquire. Watch how they package. Watch whether the US houses follow or ignore this.

2. “New adult” is not a free pass.

It still needs a spine. Voice. Heat or wonder that earns the page count. A protagonist who is becoming, not just wandering. If the only new-adult thing in the manuscript is the character’s age, that is not enough.

3. Romance at the heart does not mean “add a kiss in chapter twelve.”

If they say romance is the heart, they mean the relationship is load-bearing. The plot should bruise when the relationship bruises.

4. Crossover is a reader behavior, not a marketing trick.

The readers they want already exist. BookTok, Discord, group chats, fan spaces. The imprint is trying to meet those readers where they already live. That is good news if you understand your book’s actual community. It is noise if you don’t.

5. First titles this fall means the list is being built now.

You will not see a full picture until those books exist in the wild. Covers, comps, author notes, and where they sit in shops will tell you more than this announcement.

If this news seems like it’s for you, here are some things to think about as you prepare a strategy.

First, don’t panic and rewrite your entire book just because of this announcement. 🙂

•  Write down, in one sentence, which category fight your book keeps losing. Have you been told that your book is too (?) or not enough (?)?

•  Write down who your book is for. Not “women 18–34.” Actual people. The friend who DMs you voice notes. The reader who reads romantasy at 2 a.m. and literary fiction on Sundays.

•  Keep your book honest. If Dusk (or a US cousin) is the right home later, it will be because the book was already itself.

I have spent years watching writers shrink a manuscript to fit a box that was never built for it. Then watching the market slowly build the box afterward.

Do not shrink.

Finish the true version. Learn the language of this list. Then decide whether it is your door.

We’re not chasing imprints.

We just might be writing the kind of story an imprint has to invent a name for.

Always cheering you on,

Brandy

It wouldn’t feel right to let today pass without mentioning it. For many of us, September 11th still sits heavy.

Arthur from our community has shared a personal story from that morning. He was supposed to be in the South Tower. He wasn’t. I’m so grateful that he trusted us with this story.

If this day has left a mark on you too, you’re welcome to share a memory in the comments. No pressure. Just room.

I’m grateful for every one of you.

Brandy

The Day Our Gods Fell to Earth

A. Gee

This time 25 years ago, I was fielding calls from shocked relatives who thought I’d perished when United 175 hit the South Tower — my beautiful corner window office was on the 68th floor. But I was home. An accident of fate.

If you have Medium, the rest of the story is here: https://medium.com/the-memoirist/the-day-our-gods-fell-to-earth-e8c562c9a5be

But even if you don’t: in many — really in countless ways, that day was the inciting incident for the rest of my life.

I have some news, friends.

I’m stepping away from literary agenting.

I am so thankful for the writers who trusted me with their pages, for Barbara Bova Literary Agency, and for everyone who was kind along the way.

I’m not leaving stories. I’ll still be here as an author and story consultant—mentoring, doing consultations, building community on Patreon, and working on my own pages. And I’ve got a new adventure on the horizon too. More on that very soon.

Thank you for walking with me. The book community is amazing, and I’m glad you’re here for whatever’s next. ♥️

Brandy 

Read more details at: 
Patreon.com/brandyvallance

Just a reminder that you don’t have to be perfect to be a writer. Keep cringing and throwing stuff against the wall and getting better and creating more. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I love the messages that flip the script and free us as creators. Especially if you deal with perfectionism (*cough ) this is something to keep in mind.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcuLHg8xx5l/?igsi=MWhodzF4YmhlcGlidA==

Go get some ink, word warriors.

I’m cheering you on.

Brandy