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Is it just me or are the audiobooks way overpriced?

One of the HH books for a physical copy is like 16 bucks ok not bad audio book 50 bucks, more then double the cost?!?

I'm not big into audio books this is the first series I have listened to but is geedubs crazy? Or is this normal going rate for this kinda thing?

no they are not, its that simple, ive listened to betrayer a good 15/16 times, each play through is 13 odd hours, pound per hour is my rule, I'm winning.

As with many things, it's all relative/up to you!

of course they are overpriced. But unless you have access to pirated copies. . .

nope, not going to go there.
the best price for audiobooks that I have found is at my local library. If that doesn't work for you, try amazon prime, where you can buy the book and then an audio companion (an audiobook in fancyspeak) for about $2 usually.

I've recently become a fan of the kindle fire's text to speech function, and the plethora of downloadable voices means that you are not limited to only one.

Ok so this is going price I managed to aquire the first 3 books and loved them and wanted to buy them from there out but was shocked at the sticker price and jump

Quite a few are available for free on YouTube, but not all.

Check there first, LOL:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=horus+heresy+audiobook

Orthon wrote:
Quite a few are available for free on YouTube, but not all.

Check there first, LOL:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=horus+heresy+audiobook

Yeah but the ones i want arnt up Flight of the eisenstine or Lions call and fallen angel.

I got some space wolf ones on CD and they were really fun to listen to. Lots of silly special effects and ACTIIIING.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

Orthon wrote:
Quite a few are available for free on YouTube, but not all.

Check there first, LOL:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=horus+heresy+audiobook

Yeah but the ones i want arnt up Flight of the eisenstine or Lions call and fallen angel.

They show up from time to time, GW have been purging YouTube with copyright, my channel with about 15 audios got axed literally yesterday when I just hit over 100 subscribers. I listen to audios while I paint, so I thought I do my part and upload mine, audio edited but complete GWs, artwork complete mine, I thought it was different enough as a video. I'll find other ways to share it.

Are they overpriced yes but not as much as you would expect them to be.

Just compare them with the http://www.audible.com/cat/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Sci-Fi-Contemporary-Audiobooks/2226781011/ref=a_cat_Sci-F_c2_7_catttl . Audiobook best sellers in the genre contemporary Sci-Fi cost around 30$. GW is most likely less efficient in this all as audible and has habit to sell their product above the market to give them the premium image. So 50$ is approx what you could expect. Is it too much for me ? Yes it is. I am not going to pay 50$ for an suppar audio book, because face it GW's writers are not exactly on the same lv as for example asimov or the other big sifi writers. But hey others are of an other opinion so why not enforce their believes by selling it to them at a premium price.

 oldzoggy wrote:
Are they overpriced yes but not as much as you would expect them to be.

Just compare them with the http://www.audible.com/cat/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Sci-Fi-Contemporary-Audiobooks/2226781011/ref=a_cat_Sci-F_c2_7_catttl . Audiobook best sellers in the genre contemporary Sci-Fi cost around 30$. GW is most likely less efficient in this all as audible and has habit to sell their product above the market to give them the premium image. So 50$ is approx what you could expect. Is it too much for me ? Yes it is. I am not going to pay 50$ for an suppar audio book, because face it GW's writers are not exactly on the same lv as for example asimov or the other big sifi writers. But hey others are of an other opinion so why not enforce their believes by selling it to them at a premium price.

Actually, a terrible comparison. Audible.com has a membership that lets you get 2 credits a month for $20. You can frequently purchase another 3 credits for $30 as well. Each credit allows you to purchase a book. So, realistically, the books on audible are $10. I have a bit over 120 books from Audible at this point.

I think the part that "Shocks me" is just how expensive they are compared to the physical copy, i mean more then double the price. and you dont even get to hold it.

I can't imagine a voice actor is cheap to employ, not for the period it would take to get 12 hours+ of usable material for the unabridged versions. There's even a chance they may get royalties, as will the author.

I'm sure it doesn't justify the complete difference, but that, coupled with the relatively low volume these will sell (especially if they can only be bought from BL at full RRP) is bound to have an impact.

Rumbleguts wrote:
So, realistically, the books on audible are $10. I have a bit over 120 books from Audible at this point.

They are only $10with their subscription scheme. When you actually want to buy them on a CD outside of their whole subscription model they are generally sold for full retail price.
This is just a random hit on amazon, with ehm an interesting choice of cover art. But it does give us a nice price lv to compare black library pricing with.

For those not wanting to go offsite.
Ebook: $ 3,97
Paperback: $11,29
Audiabnle free try : 0
Audio CD:$ 29.95

https://www.amazon.com/Risteards-Unwilling-Empress-Lords-Kassis/dp/1504779150/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1473533308&sr=1-1&keywords=audiobooks .




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Now lets compare that with the first hit on black library:

The Last Son of Dorn
Ebook: $13,49
Hardback $15,95
MP3 $24,99

This suddenly doesn't look so out of line with the market to me.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
I think the part that "Shocks me" is just how expensive they are compared to the physical copy, i mean more then double the price. and you dont even get to hold it.

Then buy the book and read it yourself you lazy arse. Someone has to sit in a studio for 12+ hours (not including cuts, and re-reads) so you can listen to that book instead of read it yourself. Paying a voice actor, renting a studio and running all the equipment isn't free. Not going to comment on whether $50 for a 16 hour audio book is to much.....but expecting it to cost as much or less than the damn physical copy is just plain stupidity.

They are, but their quality is also very high. I've even listened to "Battle for the Abyss" for a couple of times, audio format really helping to deter its medicority.

All black library stuff is overpriced.

Randomly looked it up but A Storm of Swords in audiobook form is roughly $30 to $50 US but its like 47 hours long.

Star Wars Aftermath (a fairly new release in the sci fi genre) is $35 on audible and 12 hours.

Praetorian of Dorn on the BL is $50 and is roughly the same length at just under 13 hours.

Now GW isn't cheap with anything they produce but an audio book is a lot of cost to hire a reader, record, edit, etc + the cost of the book itself. I highly doubt 40k books are sellings even remotely in the ball park of Star Wars books so economy of scale plays a factor. The biggest thing is are the writing quality of Star Wars, Warhammer, etc worth that price? Depends on the narrator doing the audio book and how well the listener likes both the reader and the book itself. All things considered I don't think GW is overcharging by a lot but audiobooks certainly aren't cheap by any publisher.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
I think the part that "Shocks me" is just how expensive they are compared to the physical copy, i mean more then double the price. and you dont even get to hold it.

Because the additional costs that go into an audiobook are on top are also for a product that sells in much lower volumes than deadtree, so it's always going to be the premium price.

 Big Mac wrote:

They show up from time to time, GW have been purging YouTube with copyright, my channel with about 15 audios got axed literally yesterday when I just hit over 100 subscribers. I listen to audios while I paint, so I thought I do my part and upload mine, audio edited but complete GWs, artwork complete mine, I thought it was different enough as a video.

What on earth lead you to a conclusion as silly as that? It's still the audiobook, which is what GW is going to be concerned about.

If you were to purchase say... The Harry Potter audio books on CD (Not at Amazons discounted price) they run $49.95 each.

So no they aren't.

I would love if GW did release stuff on Audible. I would immediately grab them all. But they don't and I am selective.

They are effectively controlling their own destiny and distribution so it is going to cost more. Someday it might be cheaper... we can hope.

Until then I will continue to pick and choose the ones I want on audio.