FREE/BARGAIN — Audiobooks

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by issybird

The USS Thresher out of Portsmouth, NH, was the first nuclear submarine to be lost at sea, with more fatalities than the Kursk - the most fatalities of any submarine disaster ever.

Somehow a post of mine disappeared (I keep forgetting to click "save"), where I quoted several of the first lines of a Wikipedia article about sinkings of submarines. It turns out that I was incorrect about several things. The post that I just made prior to yours was actually something that I wanted to add to the post of mine that never got posted.

[tubemonkey]

Audible UK -- Daily Deal -- exp 08 Feb

• £2.99 -- Who Killed Sherlock Holmes? -- Paul Cornell --> paranormal

[tubemonkey]

Daily Deals -- exp 08 Feb

• Audible ---> $2.95 -- The Whiskey Sea -- Ann Creel --> romance
  
• BN Nook --> $5.95 -- The Daredevil Snared -- Stephanie Laurens --> romance

[tubemonkey]

Audible UK -- Daily Deal -- exp 09 Feb

• £2.99 -- Algorithms to Live By -- B Christian & T Griffiths --> NF computer science

* Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions

[GtrsRGr8]

Someone might be interested in knowing what became of Tantor Media.

It's still around. I got curious, because I hadn't gotten any emails of promotions on their downloads recently. So, I did some investigation. It seems that they have sharply curtailed their downloadable selection. That's probably the reason that we haven't seen any sales from them recently on downloads--as far as I can tell, from spot-checking, they hardly have any! It seems that about all that they are interested in now are CD's--regular and MP3's. Their typical choices of media for a book are 1) "Audio CD," 2) "MP3 CD," and 3) "Buy from Audible".

I have a bunch of Tantor Media CD's that I bought in the past, but now I'm trying to buy as few CD's of audiobooks, as I can. Why? Two main reasons: one, they take up space. One of the reasons that I'm buying ebooks and other digital books (e.g., as used in Bible software) is so that I can try to get rid of physical copies of books, which take up so much space! If you buy (in the case of non-MP3 CD's, especially), an audiobook in CD form, it takes up about as much space as the physical book, when you consider the protective clamshell (or whatever you call it) to store them in, and to protect them! The other reason comes from the fact that I don't use a CD-changer, just my laptop right here, to listen to the CD's. And it is a pain in the rump having to change CD's again and again (of course, it's worse when they are regular CD's and not MP3's).

I frankly don't understand why Tantor would want to shift from downloadable products to physical products. It seems like not just the future, but the present, is about downloadable audiobooks.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Audible UK -- Daily Deal -- exp 09 Feb

• £2.99 -- Algorithms to Live By -- B Christian & T Griffiths --> NF computer science

* Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions

It was marked down in the States sometime back, I bought it, and about 9 months ago I got around to listening to it. I'm not into math, computer science, or statistics, but I still found the book very interesting. I want to listen to it again, because some of it didn't "sink in" very good the first time (because of the aforementioned lack of interest (and aptitude) for math, computer science, or statistics. ha).

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

Someone might be interested in knowing what became of Tantor Media.

<snip!>

I frankly don't understand why Tantor would want to shift from downloadable products to physical products. It seems like not just the future, but the present, is about downloadable audiobooks.

They were sold to Recorded Books and the service has slowly decreased. Reminds me of Fictionwise. They ran the same as always for awhile, then B&N killed them (along with Agency pricing, of course).

[skinmaan]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

It seems that they have sharply curtailed their downloadable selection. That's probably the reason that we haven't seen any sales from them recently on downloads--as far as I can tell, from spot-checking, they hardly have any!

I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. Just doing a quick filter, of the 7,514 titles available on Tantor.com, 6,599 of them are available for download. They typically have sales on downloads for $6.99. I see 355 titles available at that price. They have been offering 1 free download a month, a practice they had given up for a while until last year. They had their annual $4.99 download sale for Black Friday. I don't see much of a drop-off from them, if any.

Tantor was recently bought (I believe) by Recorded Books, so that may influence the number and nature of their sales at some point. To date, though, I don't see it.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

They were sold to Recorded Books and the service has slowly decreased. Reminds me of Fictionwise. They ran the same as always for awhile, then B&N killed them (along with Agency pricing, of course).

Someone may have mentioned that in another forum (or even this one), but I didn't see it. Thanks for the information.

I wonder why Recorded Books is letting service at Tantor slowly decrease?

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by skinmaan

I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. Just doing a quick filter, of the 7,514 titles available on Tantor.com, 6,599 of them are available for download. They typically have sales on downloads for $6.99. I see 355 titles available at that price. They have been offering 1 free download a month, a practice they had given up for a while until last year. They had their annual $4.99 download sale for Black Friday. I don't see much of a drop-off from them, if any.
<snip>

I based my thoughts about downloads available from doing a spot-check, as I mentioned. And that was just of titles that appeared on their homepage. Of course, that would never pass as a scientific study.

The bare minimum that I can say is that Tantor certainly is not touting their download selection. For example, I am on their mailing list. Going back to at least 6/13/16, I have not received a single email from them even mentioning downloads except for several free ones that they were offering--Edgar Allan Poe, Prince Edward Island, Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, et al. (I do not delete Tantor messages, or move them to trash; I checked my trash just to be sure that I hadn't sent one or more there--I hadn't).

So, I haven't received any notice of any sale on downloadable books from them since well over half a year ago, at least. Or maybe I just don't remember seeing, the $4.99 Black Friday download sale in an email from them. I could go through my inbox and trash again to make sure that I didn't miss an email from them about it, but I'm not going to quibble about that--there are bigger fish to fry. I can start checking the O.P. of this thread for those sales, and at least be aware of them in the future that way. But, I shouldn't have to do that--I'm on Tantor's mailing list! There may be an issue with my account email settings with them, and I will check that as soon as reasonably possible.

When you go to their homepage, it is far from obvious how to find their downloadable books. I finally found a way to get to a webpage with the 355 that you mentioned (I suppose). I navigated away from that webpage to look around for things elsewhere. When I came back to the homepage, I couldn't remember or find the link that I had used earlier to get to the 355 downloads--that's how obscure the path to them is (I got back to the webpage by clicking the back arrow several times; I bookmarked the webpage so I could find it again (strangely, Tantor described the webpage's bookmark as having "Literary Classics," and that's, in fact, largely what they are. They looked like old books, classics or not. Where are the other categories? There is a filter on the left side with different categories, but almost all of them were old books (now, that's not all bad--sometimes it's hard to find a good narration of an old book, even some classics))).

I went back to the homepage and, even though this is not how I usually want to conduct a search, I clicked on "categories." I definitely wanted to see what they've got on sale for $6.99. Again, not a scientific study, but I started spot-checking the history category. They were filtered by "bestseller" (the first few pages didn't look like they had bestsellers to me, although some may be). I spot-checked literally 30 or more books, over several pages, and none of them offered a download. Finally, after about 9 or 10 pages, books did appear with a download option, and in great amounts!

What a mess. About the only thing that Tantor's website is good for (as far as downloadable products as concerned), IMHO and as far as I'm concerned, is if you are looking for a specific book, you can probably find if there is a download option for it by using the "search store" feature, then going to the product's webpage and checking "Buy Now." I don't know how anyone could browse, on their site, just the downloadable books. You may be able to tell me of a way, but even if you can, I don't know how anyone would be able to consider it easy to find out how to do it. That's ridiculous, and not a problem that I've seen with the websites of other audiobook retailers.

I'm not going to sit down and count them, but, frankly, I can't believe that Tantor has only 7,514 titles. If so, I can't believe that 6,599 of them are available for download. For that matter, I can't believe that Tantor has 6,599 downloadable titles, regardless of how many total titles that they have.

[skinmaan]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

I'm not going to sit down and count them, but, frankly, I can't believe that Tantor has only 7,514 titles. If so, I can't believe that 6,599 of them are available for download. For that matter, I can't believe that Tantor has 6,599 downloadable titles, regardless of how many total titles that they have.

1. Click on "Categories." I immediately can see on the first line above the books "1-24 of 7514."
2. Click on "Download" under "Book Format." The list is now filtered to downloads. The first line reads "1-24 of 6599."
3. Next, I'll use the "Price" slider down at the bottom of the categories on the left side of the page. If you slide the right side of the price bar down to 7 you'll see a list of all books from $0 to $7.
4. The list filters down to showing "1-24 of 356" at the top of the page.

Three clicks (or two clicks and a slide) and I got all of that information. Once you get used to it their website is really pretty good. (I may be a little biased; I helped them beta-test it.)

As to what is on sale, I honestly haven't kept up with it since the $4.99 sale day. That's kinda my buy-in price for them. You are correct that the current set of sale titles seems to be all classics. There are a number that are at $7.99; I don't know if that is a sale or not. I'd have to compare it to other sites to know for sure.

I hope that helps.

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

I wonder why Recorded Books is letting service at Tantor slowly decrease?

This is purely supposition, but I think we had a LOT of big sales while the Tantor people while trying to prove to Recorded Books that they were a profitable business that gets lots of visits/purchases.

My (completely fallible) memory was that the same thing happened in the 6 months or so before we got the announcement that B&N was buying Fictionwise. It just seemed like big sale after big sale.

I could also offer a slightly less cynical reason for why there seem to be fewer newly released audiobooks with download options. Amazon may have flexed its muscles in a recent contract negotiation to say that new releases have to be available at Audible only for the first 6 months or something like that. Or there could be some kind of Recorded Books policy for same.

That doesn't explain the lack of sales - I still think that was Tantor folks trying to increase traffic as they were in negotiations with Recorded Books.

All my guesses....this isn't anything I read anywhere else.

[tubemonkey]

Daily Deals -- exp 09 Feb

• Audible ---> $2.95 -- With Love from the Inside -- Angela Pisel --> suspense
  
• BN Nook --> $3.99 -- In A Dark Wood -- Joseph Luzzi --> memoir

* In a Dark Wood: What Dante Taught Me About Grief, Healing, and the Mysteries of Love

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Daily Deals -- exp 09 Feb

• Audible ---> $2.95 -- With Love from the Inside -- Angela Pisel --> suspense

I've listened to With Love from the Inside, and while it was engrossing, it was not thrilling and suspenseful; it was terribly depressing. Just a warning.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by skinmaan

1. Click on "Categories." I immediately can see on the first line above the books "1-24 of 7514."

I spent way too much time messing with this project yesterday. Today, I'm going to keep it short.

I found what you found. I never have learned to click on the heading, as well as check the items in the drop-down menu under that heading. I should have. This experience has taught me the lesson that I need to do that for other websites. There, I've admitted my shortcoming.

But, why can't websites include everything that you would see from clicking on a heading to also appear in the drop-down menu, and vice versa? And, why can't there be more that one path, anyway, to get to a webpage with 7535 items? I've built several websites (all very basic), and I realized the need for, and included, multiple paths to individual webpages without having to do much thinking about it at all.
[/QUOTE]

Originally Posted by skinmaan

2. Click on "Download" under "Book Format." The list is now filtered to downloads. The first line reads "1-24 of 6599."

I know how to use filters. #1, paragraph #3 is the obstacle.

Originally Posted by skinmaan

3. Next, I'll use the "Price" slider down at the bottom of the categories on the left side of the page. If you slide the right side of the price bar down to 7 you'll see a list of all books from $0 to $7.

I know how to use price sliders. Difficulty in finding the webpage that has the slider is still the problem.

Originally Posted by skinmaan

4. The list filters down to showing "1-24 of 356" at the top of the page.

Fine. #1, paragraph #3 is still the obstacle.

Originally Posted by skinmaan

Three clicks (or two clicks and a slide) and I got all of that information.

The number of clicks and the need to use a slider is not the problem. That seems pretty efficient. The problem is figuring out where the links are that need to be clicked.

Originally Posted by skinmaan

Once you get used to it their website is really pretty good. (I may be a little biased; I helped them beta-test it.)

There shouldn't be a need to get used to a website, at least much need. It should be intuitive to use, and have multiple paths to a desired webpage, so in case a person has a problem finding one path, he/she can find another way to get to the desired webpage easily. It's Website Construction 101.

I'm sure that you did a fine job beta-testing the site. But just like familiarity breeds contempt, familiarity can cause you to overlook things that a person unfamiliar with whatever it is can easily see. In simple terms, you get used to the way that it is, and doing it that way becomes second nature, no matter how unintuitive, arcane, or byzantine that it may be. May I suggest that that may have become that way concerning this website and you.

Originally Posted by skinmaan

As to what is on sale, I honestly haven't kept up with it since the $4.99 sale day. That's kinda my buy-in price for them. You are correct that the current set of sale titles seems to be all classics. There are a number that are at $7.99; I don't know if that is a sale or not. I'd have to compare it to other sites to know for sure.

Yeah, $7.99 is too high of a price point for me to buy, also, unless the audiobook is really exceptional and/or one that I want really badly. But, it's still a mystery to me why I'm not notified of Tantor's download sales. I still have yet to check my account settings r.e. email with Tantor, though.


Finally, and I may have mentioned this in my first or second post on the subject, I have been very pleased with the quality of Tantor's products--both CD's in the old days, and downloadable products in more recent times. I don't want anything that I've said make anyone think that they don't have good products--I encourage people to buy from them. I just hope that Tantor makes it easier on us to find what they sell.