The platform’s rates are negotiated upstream. The author’s share is determined downstream.

When Dutch poet Lieke Marsman revealed on social media that her audiobook – winner of Fluister’s 2025 Best Audiobook Award – had earned her just over €200 despite accumulating more than 500,000 streamed minutes, the backlash fell squarely on the platform. It was an understandable reaction. But for publishing professionals, the more instructive question is whether Fluister was ever the right target.

The Platform Isn’t Paying the Author

Here lies a distinction that rarely makes headlines: in traditional publishing arrangements, the streaming platform pays the publisher, not the author.

Fluister, part of DPG Media, confirmed it pays publishers at market-standard rates per minute streamed.

Uitgeverij Pluim, Marsman’s publisher, acknowledged that after studio hire, voice talent, editing and other production costs, it netted roughly the same as Marsman – about €200. The royalty Marsman received was governed by her contract with Pluim, not by any direct relationship with Fluister.

This structural opacity is a broader industry problem. On subscription platforms, authors’ earnings often come from shared revenue pools split by listens or pages read – and the per-listen rate shifts monthly, making income almost impossible to forecast.

A Streaming Market Under Scrutiny

Roughly 63% of audiobook listeners now subscribe to at least one platform, and the global market generated approximately $1.8 billion in 2025 – nearly all of it from digital channels.

The economics that served print simply don’t translate. For physical books, a Dutch author typically earns around €2 per copy on the first 4,000 sold. A streamed listen generates a fraction of a cent.

The Dutch authors’ union Auteursbond has argued that platforms profit from subscriber engagement while passing minimal value down the chain. But industry body Groep Algemene Uitgevers points out that audiobook and print markets are structurally distinct – popularity in one format doesn’t guarantee returns in the other.

Where the Conversation Should Be Directed

Marsman’s proposed solution – a publisher-owned dedicated audiobook platform offering fairer author compensation – is ambitious. What the case more immediately calls for is transparency within publisher–author contracts, particularly around how streaming revenues are defined, shared, and reported.

The platform’s rates are negotiated upstream. The author’s share is determined downstream. We need to ensure those downstream terms reflect the realities of a streaming-first market.

NB I’ve kept this post deliberately vague on specific platforms. There are publisher-owned platforms out there, and of course each platform has its own rules and arrangements. Fluister is singled out by name here only because it is the news story right now.

This post first appeared in the TNPS LinkedIn newsfeed.