Quote:
Originally Posted by little and large
I always hate hearing anything bad about B&N. Nice places to shop and I'd like to see them stick around. Then again, I'm not sure how many audiobooks sell these days anyway (any ideas on figures of, say, a best-seller?).
|
I don't know the figures, but I do know that book generally ISN'T made into an audio book unless it first sells quite a few copies. When it became possible for indie writers to produce audio, I talked to Full Cast Audio (they are a specialty recording outfit. Tamora Pierce did her audio with them). At any rate, unless a book already has quite a large audience and traction, audio just doesn't pay.
One other audio person I talked to mentioned that the audio book industry was changing. There are such high costs associated with the recording (paying the actor(s) and the time spent working on the recording) it was getting harder and harder to pay advances to authors. It was becoming more of a partnership -- and this 5 years ago.
There is an audience for audio and those who like audio books are quite loyal to the medium, but many of them get their audio via the library because of the high cost of individual books.
Amazon's program may or may not make audio more popular. I looked into the cost and decided even at 300 to 1000 dollars that was too much to risk. People will pay indie rates for audio books, but there simply isn't the same demand for it as there are regular or ebooks.