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Originally Posted by hey1o
Hi all,
I've been lurking for a while but the chance to win a K2 got me to join.
I've used Audible for years and love it, and ever since Amazon acquired them I've been hoping they will do more to integrate the services.
Ideally, Audible would offer a promotion for a subsidized or free Kindle with a two year subscription, and for an extra few bucks a month over the Audible Platinum plan, you would get a free ebook copy of your audiobooks if it is available.
Taking that idea one step further, the perfect fusion would allow me to listen to my audiobooks on my iPhone in the car, when I pause or stop the checkpoint is sent up to Amazon's servers, and when I go to read on the Kindle it picks up where I left off from the audiobook.
To me that full integration would be the perfect experience. Do many Kindle users use Audible, or would you use it more if it was well integrated?
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I love Audible books but I tend to listen on my phone since I'm usually out walking when I'm listening. I haven't even tried the player on my Kindle and I've had it over a year.
That model sounds lovely but I don't think it would be very doable for them until the costs of the hardware and content comes down. The e-ink screen is expensive and only made by one company. The controller isn't much better. That's a large part of why e-ink readers are as expensive as they are. The ebook prices are usually only slightly above the rather exorbitant price the publisher charges and often lower as Amazon is trying to build a market. I'm sure costs will come down eventually, though, and we'll see way better deals. S.Canton likened it to cell phones. Remember how expensive those used to be in the early adopter phase?
As for offering you both ebook and audiobook, that would work sometimes and not others. Print, digital and audio rights are often sold separately. Hopefully as this market matures, authors will start bundling the rights enabling content providers to bundle them to us. I think you recognize what is the natural evolution of this business. We're just sadly in a strange transitional period right now.