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Audible and audiobooks, the fastest growing part of publishing

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Re: Audible and audiobooks, the fastest growing part of publishing

#91

Post by max76 »

ChildOfChaos wrote: post #73
gambler wrote: post #40

>Amazon, is to book publishing what Facebook and Google are to magazines Unfortunately, this is a very accurate analogy. I like listening to audio books and Audible is definitely very convenient, but I am 100% sure that in the not so distant future Amazon will completely destroy the whole publishing ecosystem in US and that will have horrendous effect on the quality of what is being written and on the availability of…

I think Audible works though because of the monthly subscription and the fact people get credits a month in exchange for a book. This credit is purchased at a lot lower cost than paying for the book outright. But it's sold on the basis that people will stay subscribed and thus end up with books they wouldn't of otherwise bought as they are looking for something to spend their credit on this month. A different model t…

> But it's sold on the basis that people will stay subscribed and thus end up with books they wouldn't of otherwise bought as they are looking for something to spend their credit on this month.

Why would someone feel pressure to use a credit? A person can have several extra credits at time. The credit system has a lot of advantages for Amazon, but time pressure isn't one of them.

Re: Audible and audiobooks, the fastest growing part of publishing

#92

Post by [deleted] »

listenandlearn wrote: post #90

I absolutely love Audio Books, I think I went through maybe 25+ audio books, mostly non fiction, in 2018 alone. It is a fantastic way to maximize dead time, but generally I think non music audio is going through a sort of renaissance. While the author of this post is really distraught about Amazons dominance with Audible I do think in some ways non music audio is much bigger than just Audibooks for example Podcasts a…

[deleted]

Re: Audible and audiobooks, the fastest growing part of publishing

#93

Post by chrstphrhrt »

listenandlearn wrote: post #90

I absolutely love Audio Books, I think I went through maybe 25+ audio books, mostly non fiction, in 2018 alone. It is a fantastic way to maximize dead time, but generally I think non music audio is going through a sort of renaissance. While the author of this post is really distraught about Amazons dominance with Audible I do think in some ways non music audio is much bigger than just Audibooks for example Podcasts a…

Sweet project! There's also https://curio.io which I stumbled across reading Aeon, and it's got high quality but pretty low volume of content so far (I'm sure they're working on that).

Re: Audible and audiobooks, the fastest growing part of publishing

#94

Post by _i____ii_______ »

zaat wrote: post #38
_i____ii_______ wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People do Librivox recordings free of charge as volunteers. Those recordings are just as good as Audible recordings. I myself, with rudimentary gear and a free DAW, can create an Audible level recording for the mere cost of my time. I'm going to have to totally reject your list of expenses. Sounds like a bunch of superfluous positions and bloat.

If you can't tell the difference between the average LibriVox recording and the average commercial audio book, there is no way you can produce an Audible level of recording. Even if half the volunteering recorders and their gear were as good as those of the commercial offerings, just sitting and selecting those that are not good enough for publishing and those that require some re-recording is a massive extra work.

What is so special about Audible recordings that is unnattainable by Librivox? You mean sound quality? You mean some holy grail vocal mics? Or vocal talent? I don't get it.

Re: Audible and audiobooks, the fastest growing part of publishing

#95

Post by listenandlearn »

chrstphrhrt wrote: post #93
listenandlearn wrote: post #90

I absolutely love Audio Books, I think I went through maybe 25+ audio books, mostly non fiction, in 2018 alone. It is a fantastic way to maximize dead time, but generally I think non music audio is going through a sort of renaissance. While the author of this post is really distraught about Amazons dominance with Audible I do think in some ways non music audio is much bigger than just Audibooks for example Podcasts a…

Sweet project! There's also https://curio.io which I stumbled across reading Aeon, and it's got high quality but pretty low volume of content so far (I'm sure they're working on that).

Sure I follow them but their issue is it’s human read articles which is why the volume is so low.

Articles unlike books are being produced in the millions everyday and so it’s really hard to find the best pieces to read over.. which is what they have to do.

I think there is room for letting people listen to anything and AI/ML advancements allow us to get pretty damn close.

Re: Audible and audiobooks, the fastest growing part of publishing

#96

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #92
listenandlearn wrote: post #90

I absolutely love Audio Books, I think I went through maybe 25+ audio books, mostly non fiction, in 2018 alone. It is a fantastic way to maximize dead time, but generally I think non music audio is going through a sort of renaissance. While the author of this post is really distraught about Amazons dominance with Audible I do think in some ways non music audio is much bigger than just Audibooks for example Podcasts a…

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: Audible and audiobooks, the fastest growing part of publishing

#97

Post by zeroonetwothree »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #24
_i____ii_______ wrote: post #3

Audible's greatest assault is on my wallet. So many audiobooks on that platform are exorbitantly expensive.

Depending on how many books you read, it might be well worth buying a Platinum Membership. It costs $229.50/year and it comes with 24 credits, which means you pay $9.56 per book. After that you can buy additional credits for roughly the same rate, based on my purchase history it varies between $9.56 and $9.37 per credits. I definitely wouldn't have bought as many as I have if it wasn't so cheap. I just recently passe…

I do the same thing and have ~500 books so far. I started in 2014, so I buy around 100/year. The overall price is actually cheaper than buying paper/ebooks, considering I buy many new releases.

Also getting longer books is a really good value, since they cost the same. Just get Infinite Jest instead of 5 separate books.

Re: Audible and audiobooks, the fastest growing part of publishing

#98

Post by max76 »

Causality1 wrote: post #18
_i____ii_______ wrote: post #3

Audible's greatest assault is on my wallet. So many audiobooks on that platform are exorbitantly expensive.

Yep. Fifty hours of Netflix is fifteen dollars a month. Fifty hours of Audible content is close to a hundred bucks. Now, two dollars per hour is cheap compared to traditional entertainment like movie theaters and DVDs but downright insane compared to YouTube and Spotify.

You could get a library card and checkout DVDs, audiobooks and books for free. Podcasts are free. Network television is free. Assuming you are working and middle class the expensive part about consuming fifty hours of entertainment isn't spending $15 or $100. It's spending fifty hours of your attention.

People buying audiobooks aren't suckers, and most of them are spending much less than $2/hr.

Re: Audible and audiobooks, the fastest growing part of publishing

#99

Post by lugg »

max76 wrote: post #91
ChildOfChaos wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Audible works though because of the monthly subscription and the fact people get credits a month in exchange for a book. This credit is purchased at a lot lower cost than paying for the book outright. But it's sold on the basis that people will stay subscribed and thus end up with books they wouldn't of otherwise bought as they are looking for something to spend their credit on this month. A different model t…

> But it's sold on the basis that people will stay subscribed and thus end up with books they wouldn't of otherwise bought as they are looking for something to spend their credit on this month. Why would someone feel pressure to use a credit? A person can have several extra credits at time. The credit system has a lot of advantages for Amazon, but time pressure isn't one of them.

Credits expire and there is a max of 6.

Re: Audible and audiobooks, the fastest growing part of publishing

#100

Post by rahimnathwani »

gnicholas wrote: post #67
dfabulich wrote: post #57

Instead of Audible, I recommend downloading audiobooks for free from your local library. The San Francisco Public Library uses an app called "Libby." (I think most major US libraries support it.) It's free and convenient. No complaints.

FYI, Libby is an app made by OverDrive, (which is in turn owned by Rakuten). Although OverDrive has published multiple open letters proclaiming their dedication to accessibility, they have done relatively little in this space. In one disappointing conversation with a senior executive, I was told that if they can’t charge libraries more for a feature, they won’t add it. To my mind, the definition of accessibility is m…

"To my mind, the definition of accessibility is making decisions that make a product more accessible even if doing so does not make more money."

Their clients (libraries) are the ones providing a service to end users. It's up to the libraries to determine what's important when selecting a supplier or developing a custom solution.

Imagine I download an app on my phone. And I find it can't be used with a screen reader for some reason. Who is responsible here? Me? Google Play? The app publisher? The outsourced developer who did the coding for hire?

Now imagine the same situation, but:

- the app publisher being a US entity which takes federal funds

- the app being assembled wholly from existing community-maintained open source projects

It seems obvious to me that the party providing the service, and not the developer of the underlying software, is responsible.

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