Audiobooks outrageous pricing
OK, books are expensive to produce and sell. Especially hardbacks. So can can anyone explain to me why the Audiobooks are mostly more expensive than hardbacks for sale on Amazon? 
There are no physical costs, no money to spend on moving very heavy things from A to B, no store related costs, no postage to worry about. This is insane - I had hoped that Apple would be able to persuade the Audio people to chill a bit on the price, on the grounds that undercutting the paper version would significantly raise volume of electronic sales . . .
There are no physical costs, no money to spend on moving very heavy things from A to B, no store related costs, no postage to worry about. This is insane - I had hoped that Apple would be able to persuade the Audio people to chill a bit on the price, on the grounds that undercutting the paper version would significantly raise volume of electronic sales . . .
Comments
Originally posted by kumrabai
OK, books are expensive to produce and sell. Especially hardbacks. So can can anyone explain to me why the Audiobooks are mostly more expensive than hardbacks for sale on Amazon?
There are no physical costs, no money to spend on moving very heavy things from A to B, no store related costs, no postage to worry about. This is insane - I had hoped that Apple would be able to persuade the Audio people to chill a bit on the price, on the grounds that undercutting the paper version would significantly raise volume of electronic sales . . .
You have to pay someone a helluva lot of money to actually get them to recite Hillary Clintons book.
Originally posted by audiopollution
You have to pay someone a helluva lot of money to actually get them to recite Hillary Clintons book.
Look at the audiobook section.
Notice that they are a lot more money than the paperback version.
Understand that it is cheaper to press a couple cds that print a book.
Learn that the cost reflects the content, not necessary just the manufacturing and distrobution.
Realize that buying the rights for an audiobook probably costs apple more than an album.
Progress to pondering lifes other mysteries.
Screedfucious say: converting an audio track from one medium to another is easy; converting written word to spoken word verrrry difficult.
Screed
Originally posted by audiopollution
You have to pay someone a helluva lot of money to actually get them to recite Hillary Clintons book.
She read it herself
Often its the authoer who reads it but not always.
Originally posted by murk
I can't believe the stuff from NPR. You can listen to this week's Car Talk for free at cartalk.com, but if you want to listen to an archived show from Audible, it's $3.95.
Yeah, but you get the privilege of it automatically being uploaded to your iPod with no hassle. Isn't the cartalk.com version just a stream?
Originally posted by jante99
Yeah, but you get the privilege of it automatically being uploaded to your iPod with no hassle. Isn't the cartalk.com version just a stream?
Or, you just download it with RadioLover or the like, and boom, you got it.
It's just like a PVR/tape/VHS... assuming you delete it after you've listened to it once.
Originally posted by gorebug
Go into a bookstore.
Look at the audiobook section.
Notice that they are a lot more money than the paperback version.
Understand that it is cheaper to press a couple cds that print a book.
Learn that the cost reflects the content, not necessary just the manufacturing and distrobution.
Realize that buying the rights for an audiobook probably costs apple more than an album.
Progress to pondering lifes other mysteries.
Yeah, but unless I'm missing the point, Steve is trying to get audio books into circulation that's much wider than speciality groups. After all, the market is potentially huge, what with commuters etc with hours to kill.
Let's face it, a huge proportion of the cost of a book is in its physical distribution and production. The MUCH reduced costs of recording a book and distributing it electronically should be passed on to the customer.
And as for the $3.95 for car talk - this is even harder to justify. The only marginal cost is the download and the credit card fees. . . .
Look at it this way. if the average $.99 song is 4 minutes in length, that's roughly $.25 per minute. Now the average book is about 4 hours in length, so if the pricing were the same as music ($.25/minute) it would cost $60!
But even the content size isn't the whole reason for high prices. I think volume is a big part of it. Ask Amazon how many music CDs they sell everyday vs. audiobooks. I'll bet if sales of audiobooks spiked, we'd see the prices come down.