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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

#101

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

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.

It is, a little. You can't sustain a listening rate of less than nine books per year. That's because there are no plans that provide less than one credit per month, and you can only put your account on hold three months per year. I suppose you could bank extra credits indefinitely, but if you only want to read six books per year, then after two years you will have a year's worth of credits banked. After four years, you'll have two years worth of credits banked.

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

#102

Post by anbop »

satvikpendem wrote: post #42

I'm ready for when I can have my books read to me with machine learning à la WaveNet or similar, effectively cutting out the middleman and making a very cheap audiobook version. Google Books can already do this with epubs but it's not at the same level as a professional audiobook however.

That would be good for books too esoteric to justify a professional recording, but machine learning will never get as good as a professionally narrated audiobook. The form is so distinctive that the training data would need to be the very best audiobooks.

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

#104

Post by _i____ii_______ »

reificator wrote: post #43
_i____ii_______ wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are the costs to produce audiobooks higher? Librivox has public domain books for free, submitted by volunteers.

Yes, you've been plugging this throughout the thread. I've been working on writing a book and want to sell an audio book alongside it. Could you go ahead and record it for free for me so I can sell it to recoup my own costs? No? Why not? I'm glad there are volunteer projects out there, especially keeping public domain works available and accessible to more people. I'm even more glad that you feel that the quality of…

I've never recorded for Librivox. I just record music and have gear so I know what the work entails. I couldn't provide a voice actor's inherent vocal quality, which seems to be some neutral everyman's voice you could'nt put a face to. But if you want to pay someone so much money to read your book into a mic and do some basic editing that they could purchase a brand new car at the end of a weeks work then be my guest.

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

#105

Post by lugg »

jrgaston wrote: post #62

For me audio books don't replace regular books, they supplement them, by expanding my reading time and by getting me to read books I'd otherwise not. I often end up with both the physical or e-book plus the audio book. Sometimes I start with the audio book, especially if the book is challenging, then later switch to the non-audio book. Sometimes I jump back and forth. Yeah, crazy. Down sides? Choice. (You want a diff…

Pretty much this. If I have Tien to sit down and read it's going to be a technical book with lots of code.

Audible gives me an opportunity to read other types of books.

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

#106

Post by max76 »

lefstathiou wrote: post #83

I can’t resist the temptation to ask given this thread is on HN (a community I love) and Audible is a passion... for those who love Audible and Audio books, would you mind sharing 2-3 you particularly enjoyed? I’m always hunting for new ones. Here are some I would recommend: Management 1. Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People 2. Getting to Yes Great book on negotiation in life and business 3. The Ha…

Science Fiction: The Bobiverse Triligoy [We are Legion (We are Bob)] is a hilarious story about a character not unlike the average Hacker News reader that finds himself in the enviable position of having his consciousness uploaded into a Von Neumann probe (self replicating space exploring robot). It has a good humor, the same attention to details The Martian has, nerdy pop culture references, and several moments of philosophical musings. Ray Porter does fantastic narration.

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

#108

Post by Jagat »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #101
max76 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It is, a little. You can't sustain a listening rate of less than nine books per year. That's because there are no plans that provide less than one credit per month, and you can only put your account on hold three months per year. I suppose you could bank extra credits indefinitely, but if you only want to read six books per year, then after two years you will have a year's worth of credits banked. After four years, y…

There's a hidden 'silver' plan which is one credit every two months. The only way to get that is to talk to/chat with the customer service.

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

#109

Post by tylergetsay »

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…

I can't hear any samples without downloading the app, I would recommend adding a few.
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