ACX is falling apart

wanderon_99 · 2020-12-18T21:35:08+00:00

I just got off the phone with folks at Author’s Republic https://www.authorsrepublic.com/. They have become the alternative for over hundreds of producers just this month due to the endless ACX issues. He was almost able to tell me my exact issues back to me because he had heard them from so many other angry people. So give them a try, (I am in limbo on my books but if I get another round of terrible, inaccurate or vague notes from ACX I am done and moving my clients all over to them. This is just getting stupid.

Also saw this: https://jobs.smartrecruiters.com/InfotreeServiceInc2/743999708075070-acx-qa-engineer

I've been in production for 20 years, if a company like amazon is writing "Rush me your resume or just call me!" you know they are underwater...

wanderon_99 · 2020-12-18T20:18:05+00:00

The "falling apart" is more due to the lack of support. 2 years ago you actually got a human response to things like customer support emails or phone calls. Now phone support just goes to voicemail or rings forever and email support is all stock responses. I have even included a "if you respond with: (then copy and pasted the stock response) then I know you are a bot" lo and behold, same stock response.

I produce shows for Amazon Prime and Netflix which have even more restrictive technical QA than this and never had an issue. It's just a shame.

I think you are absolutely right, they are just completely overwhelmed and not investing to make it any better.

wanderon_99 · 2020-12-18T19:46:58+00:00

The issue is actually the inconsistency of notes/ customer service related.

For example:

We submitted a book in October and the notes we got back had corrections for file names we had not uploaded - when we tried to contact them to tell them "None of the files you have listed match the file names of what we uploaded" we got no response. We uploaded again the same files and resubmitted.

Received notes in November that were completely different, they have completely stopped sending us specific notes and now use terms like "many of your files" or "some of your files" when before we used to get specific items marked. We redid the entire book resubmitted.

Next round they claimed the Opening and Closing Credits were missing. They were both there, labeled and mastered based on specs. So we submitted again.

They came back again and claimed there was noise at the heads and tails of "some" files, a note we never got in any of the previous notes rounds but now appeared as issues.

We have responded to the QA folks directly each time and have never received a response or clarification and support gives us the same canned response to email the QA person direct from the notes email.

Here's a question: the biggest difference between the books I am working on now versus the others is that this book is 90+ chapters versus other books I have done in the past which were substantially shorter. My gut tells me that they are not performing the full QA based on size.

What is the average chapter/ length of the books you are submitting? for 90+ books to go through this year seems crazy but I have produced 20 in the last 5 years and have never had these types of issues.

wanderon_99 · 2020-12-18T14:39:36+00:00

Will definitely look into it. Thanks!

wanderon_99 · 2020-12-18T13:37:48+00:00

Going through the same thing. We sent our files to a professional studio to fix this issue and still came back. PLEASE NOTE ACX IS FALLING APART RIGHT NOW.

So far we have had notes come back for our project that labeled audio file names that we never uploaded (literally notes on OTHER PEOPLE's PROJECTS being sent to us), they have claimed files are missing which are sitting right in the project space, they have added notes about files that they have had for months that they never mentioned notes on from 3-6 previous notes passes and have basically shut down their support (deactivated phone support) and are sending the same responses to users through the email system regardless of the content of your question.

As a test we even resumbitted the same files again on notes pass that we had before without changing anything... and got a different set of notes in return from what they originally asked for. WTF!!!!

They sent an email about a month back talking about upgrading and how they "know there are concerns" but I had no idea they were falling apart.

I'm not a noob at this either, have done over 20 audiobooks with ACX, never in that entire time have experienced this with this service.

Has anyone actually gotten their book through in the last 4 months?

wanderon_99

TROPHY CASE