Tag: Audible

Recently, Audible had a site-wide sale where everything on the site was up-to 85% off. I love sales like these because they are a feeding-frenzy for buying books. But to make the most effective use of such a sale requires a bit of skill. I picked up more than a dozen audiobooks in the latest sale, and I thought I’d use that as an example of audibook economics that I have picked up in the 9+ years I have been using Audible.

The first thing to understand is my subscription to the Audible service: I have the Audible Premium Plus subscription. This subscription entitles me to 2 credits each month, a 30% discount of the prices of Audiobooks, access to anything in the “Plus” catalog, special discounts like the Daily Deal, and other features. For this I pay about $25/month.

At $25/month my credits are worth $12.50 each. So when I am browsing books to buy, if the book in question costs less than $12.50, I won’t use a credit for it. Instead, I’ll pay separately. Moreover, I can buy an additional 3-pack of credits for $35, which amounts to $11.60/credit. So in practice, my rule is that if an audiobook costs more than $12 I’ll use a credit; if it costs less than $12 I’ll pay separately for it. This is just common sense.

There are always exceptions, however. For instance, especially with nonfiction books (the bulk of what I listen to) I will frequently also buy the Kindle version. Often times, if you look at the Kindle page for a book, you will see an option to add the Audible audiobook version for a fraction of the normal price. For instance, the Kindle edition might cost $12.99 and there will be an option to add on the audiobook for an additional $7.99. That is a grand total of $21, which is more than the cost of a credit. However, because the audiobook add-on is only $7.99, which is less than my $12 threshold. In these cases, I generally don’t use a credit to pay for the editions. I justify this because I get more than I would for buying the audiobook alone. And besides, often times the audiobook alone wouldn’t be $7.99, but more like $20. It is only bundled with the e-book that is becomes discounted.

There are other deals I look out for. I always check out the Daily Deal, which usually offers an audiobook at a deep discount each day, normally in the range of $2-6. In these cases, I never use credits to pay for the book because the credits are worth more than the book. I’ll just pay normally for these.

Then there are the 2-for-1 deals that popup now and then. In these deal, you can use a single credit to get 2 audiobooks. These can be tricky. If I see books that I want, I have to weigh the cost of getting 2-for-1, over the paying separately for the Kindle edition, if I want it. In other words, I will look to see if the Kindle edition offers a discounted add-on for the audiobook and then weight the difference over the use a single credit. Sometimes it is worth spending the credit, other times, I pay without the credit to get the bundle with the Kindle edition.

At the time of the recent site-wide sale, I think I had 4 credits stored up. Here is how I ended up aqcuiring 16 books from that sale using the method detailed above (and using just one credit):

Book	List Price	Sale Price	I Paid
Gotham by Edwin G. Borrows and Mike Wallace	$39.95	$5.99	$5.99
The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal	$29.95	$4.49	$4.49
Collosus by Mike Hiltzik	$29.95	$4.49	$4.49
Fallout by Lesley M. M. Blume	$17.00	$8.49	$8.49
Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White	$18.90	$9.46	$9.46
Point to Point Navigation by Gore Vidal	$24.49	$3.67	$3.67
Index, A History of The by Dennis Duncan	$17.49	$8.74	$8.74
The Man From the Future by Ananyo Bhattacharya	$31.50	$20.33	1 Credit
The Gulf by Jack E. Davis	$24.49	$3.67	$3.67
The Death of a President by William Manchester	$39.95	$5.99	$5.99
The Hawk’s Way by Sy Montgomery (pre-order)	$14.17	$7.08	$7.08
Cuba by Ada Ferrer	$33.07	$5.95	$5.95
Fairy Tale by Stephen King (pre-order)	$33.07	$16.54	$16.54
A Man of Iron by Troy Senik	$22.67	$11.34	$11.34
Analogia by George Dyson	$24.49	$12.24	$12.24
Einstein’s Fridge by Paul Sen	$18.89	$9.44	$9.44
Total	$420.03	$137.91	$117.58

For the 14 books I ordered, I paid just 28% of the list price. Note that I used a credit for the most expensive of the books on sale (The Man From the Future). Techically, that credit cost me about $11 so I saved $13 by using it, which means I should add the $7 to the price I paid. That brings my total to $124.58, which is still only 29% of the list price. I think that is a pretty good bargain.

That, good readers, is my theory of audiobook economics. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some reading to do.

Written on March 7, 2022.

First, let me say I’m a big fan. It wasn’t always that way. I used to think that audiobooks just weren’t for me. But once I tried them, I quickly saw the error of my ways. I became an Audible subscriber in February 2013. Since then I have happily added more than 1,100 books to my Audible library. I love audiobooks. I love that they allow me to read while doing mundane things around the house, or while commuting. I love the dimension they add to a book with the narrator’s performance. I love their convenience, and the simplicity of the app. What bothers me today is all of the other distractions I find on my phone when I try to listen to audiobooks.

Remember when MP3 players first came out? They were these tiny, devices that could fit in the palm of your hand. They could hold maybe a dozen songs. They had a simple interface to select a song, play a song, move between tracks, and randomize the tracks. And control volume. That was it. When iPods first came out, they improved upon this. The interface was better. And you could download music, which was a game changer. But otherwise, all they did was play music. The iPhone is great, but these days, it does way too much. There is too much to distract me on my phone. Here is what I would love to see in the future:

I’d like a device like similar to the early iPods, except instead of music, you can download audiobooks from Audible. There are no other apps on this device. The device can hold a decent number of audiobooks, and has a good battery life, mainly because all it is doing is playing audiobooks. The interface for the device can essentially be what the Audible app is on the iPhone today. I can see my stats, browse my wishlist, buy books with credits, but mostly, I can listen to my audiobooks. The device should allow me to connect via bluetooth to the headset of my choosing. It should be a small device, like an old iPod. If you want it to come in different colors, I’m okay with that. It could run the Audible OS.

I think a device like this would be popular. It would allow me to listen to my audiobooks without having to have my phone nearby. These days, I take my phone to bed usually because I am listening to a book before I fall asleep. But if my phone is there, I will inevitably start browsing something and get distracted. An Audible device would prevent this. I could leave my phone in the office and still listen to my book. Granted, I could play my audiobook through Alexa and not be distracted, but then everyone else would have to listen along while Grover Gardner read Will Durant’s The Age of Reason Begins at 1.7x speed. The family already thinks I’m a little nutty. This might push them over.

Having a little device that would allow for distraction-free listening would be a perfect holiday gift. Think of all of the possibilities in such a device. You could have specially branded editions, like a black Neil Gaiman edition, or perhaps one in the shape of a dagger, the special Michael J. Sullivan edition. I don’t know that I’d want an author to sign my iPhone, but I could imagine having them sign my device. You could call it the “Narrator.” I think I’d use my Narrator a lot and use my iPhone a lot less. Just imagining it, I can see those distractions melting away.

Anyway, I humbly submit this idea to you, good people of Audible. Feel free to use the idea and build the device. I don’t even need to get one for free for coming up with the idea. I’d be more than happy to pay for such a device, if it existed.

Thanks for listening (see what I did there?).

Yours truly,

Jamie Todd Rubin

(Your #1 fan)