13179: See How Easy It Is To Create A Scam Project On ACX
Hey there, hero!
Our NarrateYourOwnBook.com training course, designed for authors who want to be the voice of their own books, has a lesson in it that shows them how to “claim their title” from Kindle and start the process of producing the audiobook version of their book on ACX.
You’d think you’d need some sort of permission to claim a title, but you’d be wrong.
In this episode we discuss how easy it is for scammers to create ACX projects from any title that has yet to be claimed, leaving us in the position of being taken advantage of.
As a narrator, you’ll want to watch this, and then be extra vigilant when someone contacts you out of the blue on ACX to narrate their book. And if you’re an author, you’ll want to watch for your title being claimed without your permission.
Could it be any easier? Thoughts on this? Let me know in the comments below.
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Want to be a better VO talent, actor or author? Here’s how I can help you…
- …become a VO talent (or a more successful one):
- …become an audiobook narrator on ACX (if you’re an actor or VO talent):
- …narrate your own book (if you’re an author):
- …have the most effective pop filter (especially for VO talent):
- …be off-book faster for on-camera auditions and work (memorize your lines):
Raw transcript:
Raw transcript:
if you’ve ever wondered why there are so
many scams on ACX revolving around
somebody grabbing a title that doesn’t
belong to them and then putting it up
for auditions and we get nailed by it
and also how you can protect yourself
from that if you’re an author this
episode is for you we’ll talk about that
next on this episode of the vo Heroes
[Music]
podcast so you may be aware that uh one
of the training programs that I have is
narrate your own book and it’s
specifically for authors who want to
narrate their own book and I was
creating the lesson on how to claim your
title and create an account on ACX and
then claim your title and what happens
is uh the moment you create your uh
account maybe four or five steps in and
then tell ACX in that process that
you’re an author the very next thing
they do is want to help you claim your
title on
KDP and there’s no check to see if the
title that you claim from the list of
the search that you do when you’re on
KDP there’s no check to see if that’s
actually your title if it if you own it
if you wrote it if it belongs to you
you’re just searching for an asent
number you’re searching for a title or
you’re searching for the author name
they don’t check and it was as easy as
clicking the button that says claim this
title no check no nothing and from there
I created a project and I could have put
it up for
auditions so it’s important to
understand that this is a feature not a
bug now you may think it’s a bug
especially if you’re a narrator and
you’ve been scammed before by somebody
who has less than less than honorable
intentions about this but remember that
ACX was created for one reason and one
reason only KDP Kindle Amazon now owns
ACX we back in 2009 2010 before ACX was
created and they also own Kindle and the
whole point was how do we get all these
Kindle books made into audiobooks so
Kindle was the driver and what they’re
doing with the process is making it as
easy and friction free as
possible to let authors claim titles and
put them up for production put them up
or or to do them themselves right in a
DIY audio book or a narrate your own
audiobook so there is no
check and I find that to be a little
annoying on the narrator you know
offering their services to rights
holders side of things and I find that
amazingly convenient as an author
because I can get that much closer
without any sort of um
confirmation or check with ACX or check
with Kindle or check with Amazon will
let you know if that’s the right book
for you they have no way of tracking
that now you can say oh sure they do you
you uh you know you have your account on
KDP and only the books that are in your
account should be available to you well
in some cases that’s not true in some
cases it’s a different account that you
own from the account that you’re in when
you go looking for the title so I just
want point out two things number one
it’s really easy for authors to claim
their title that’s the that’s the good
news the bad news is they can claim any
title they want and it doesn’t have to
be an author it can be somebody who just
creates an account and then starts
putting up titles on a scammy basis that
you know hopefully they’ll get produced
this is in their minds hopefully they’ll
get produced make a little money on
before audible finds out and takes it
down that’s the whole point of those
scams but I wanted you to kind of peek
behind the scenes
both from an author’s perspective and
how easy and friction free it is and
from a narrator offering their services
to ACX rights holders how easy it is and
why that means there can be scams going
on so I don’t know if you were aware of
that but I wanted to bring it to your
attention if you have any comments about
this I would love to hear what they are
please scroll down leave me a comment
let me know what you think hit the like
button if you like what you’re
hearing you can subscribe to the channel
and you can also uh be notified when the
next episode comes out you might want to
pass this on to an author or to a
narrator who needs to hear this whole
thing about claiming your title I’d be
so appreciative if you did that I’m
David H Lawrence the 17th I thank you so
much for watching and for listening and
I’ll see you in the next episode of the
vo Heroes podcast
[Music]
(from YouTube)
I came really close to getting scammed once. I actually bought some stuff in preparation to narrate the book, but I’m glad I figured it out before I recorded anything.