It never fails, no matter how inexpensive something can be, someone’s going to want it for less.
I stumbled across Jennie’s innocuous comment about audiobooks being expensive, and thought, “Hey, another audiobook fan!” And then I thought, “Wait, expensive? What about the library?”
Audiobooks go anywhere from free to really expensive, but it’s all about knowing where to get them.
Doing some research on pricing around the world last week, I discovered that the Harry Potter audiobooks are TWICE as expensive in the UK as in the US.
Meaning over $100 for any given one (unabridged of course). Go figure. Captive audience? Most audiobooks there is the same price as here. Now that’s expensive.
With the advent of digital downloads, prices for books keep dropping.
Our own rental program brings the cost down quite a bit, but the program isn’t designed for getting specific audiobooks right at the moment you want them.
For that, you have to either download, with all the attendant hassles or go to your neighborhood bookstore where they still might not have what you want and would charge you an arm and your left eye to buy it anyway.
No perfect solution.
But I’ve been an audiobook fan for going on a dozen years now, and selection AND pricing are much better now than they’ve ever been in the past. How nice.
As an audiobook purchaser for over 15 years, I would have to agree that prices are coming down. As you say, the cheapest way, though it doesn’t satisfy immediate wants, is the downloading/renting of 2 or 3 audiobooks per month at a fixed price – usually it works out to at worst a 2 for 1 deal buying that way.
I have been a member of audible for almost a year now, and through the 2 I get every month, as well as 50 % off specials, I have downloaded 39 books. This is because of the great prices – some 7-9 hours at less than $10. I have listened to almost every one – some a few times.
You have some of the books that they don’t, so I joined you too. Do you ever have 50% off specials? Sometimes they can trigger impulse buying!!
Either way, it is much cheaper than just being able to buy at the local bookstore.
I feel that both the price for downloading and the price for audiobooks from the bookstore are more than I’m willing to pay. A couple of months ago I found a nice hardcover of the classic Dune for $12 or $15 at Borders and snapped it up, since I only had a paperback and am sure to re-read it. I’ve had an eye out for an audiobook of this, and this weekend noticed one at Borders for either $50 or $75 — in either case, way more than I’m going to spend.
Unfortunately, this edition seems unlikely to show up for rental at SimplyAudiobooks, as it was an “exclusive” release for Borders. Argh!
The rental approach is the only cost-effective audiobook solution I’ve found…well, in addition to the free audiobooks. The downside of such free works is that the audio quality is not nearly as good (they tend to be done by the author, at whatever quality level the author can muster).
Well, there’s an idea… 50% off specials! I won’t get into the contractual reasons why Audible can offer those special deals and we can’t (easily) do it. Fact is, it encourages buying of books that perhaps otherwise wouldn’t be bought, and I’m sure we’ll consider temporary specials for our a la carte sales (CD and download both) in the future.
It would appear that mixing and matching audiobooks’ sources is how most audiobooks lovers stay satisfied. Now if we could just get publishers to stop doing exclusive deals with particular retail sources.