Reading online, it is looking more like there are royalty shares. And I'm not clear on how "produced by Audible" works factor in there. Seems silly that the narrator wouldn't also be entitled to a per sale value.
I will also ack that I'm all for better legislation to help creators in a lot of this. I just don't know that this all is as clean a picture as you are making it. For an easy example, did audible drop their payout from 70 down to 20ish at the same time they dropped the average price that they sold at? That would change the story more than a little bit, if so. Do they also cover some of the upfront costs of production for some audio books?
I will also ack that I'm all for better legislation to help creators in a lot of this. I just don't know that this all is as clean a picture as you are making it. For an easy example, did audible drop their payout from 70 down to 20ish at the same time they dropped the average price that they sold at? That would change the story more than a little bit, if so. Do they also cover some of the upfront costs of production for some audio books?