Quote:
Originally Posted by issybird
The end of the OverDrive/Whispersync deal and the colossal jump in Whispersync prices on the classics have caused me to buy far fewer audiobooks than I used to. It's not as if I shrugged my shoulders and decided to use pricey credits on these titles instead. I do without.
I have no idea what the price elasticity is on audiobooks, but $14.95 or thereabouts is a dealbreaker for me; I'd be willing to go higher than $1.99 or $2.99, but we're not even in shouting distance. Fortunately, OverDrive isn't going to run out of audiobooks any time soon.
|
Yeah, the end of the Overdrive/Whispersync deal was a bummer.
I don't think that the jump in Whispersync prices is limited to the classics. Perhaps you mentioned them because that is what you mainly read.
I haven't been seeing the low Whispersync audio prices that I used to either, and I don't read the classics or, for that matter, any fiction. It seems like $3.99 is the lowest price that I have seen recently on the audio portion (except for self-pubs, very short books, etc.) of a Whispersync deal. And $4.00 is about the most that I ever want to pay for an audiobook. So, unless the book has a Whispersync narration and the book is free (not unheard of, but rare), it's going to exceed my threshold price already.
If a classic (by "classic," I'm assuming that it is an old enough book that it is in the public domain) is a real popular one, it looks like there would be a free audio with
high-quality narration somewhere on the Internet--maybe even . . . *gulp* . . . LibroVox. If it is an obscure title, there may be a narration around somewhere, but it will tend to be lousy. For example, when I wanted a narration of the apocryphal
Acts of Peter, fairly recently, Librovox had one, but it was of terrible quality (IMHO). I scoured the Internet, but that is the only audio copy that I could find!
I haven't been seeing the low Whispersync audio prices that I used to either, and I don't read the classics or, for that matter, any fiction. It seems like $3.99 is the lowest price that I have seen recently on the audio portion (except for self-pubs, very short books, etc.) of a Whispersync deal. And $4.00 is about the most that I ever want to pay for an audiobook. So, unless the book has a Whispersync narration and the book is free (not unheard of, but rare), it's going to exceed my threshold price already.
To all MobileReaders--enjoy and be thankful for other good deals that you've been enjoying, because they may not be around forever. I know that when the Overdrive/Whispersync deal was in place, I didn't appreciate it like I should and, more significantly, I didn't take advantage of it like I should have.