The Availability Of Audio Books Online


As has been analyzed many hundreds of times in past reports, the availability of audio books online is almost as comparable as the availability of mp3 files. For some, this will be a difficult relationship to work out, simply because mp3's have always been looked upon as the most popular type of file distribution. However, what most people fail to recognize is that in a number of cases - audio books are themselves mp3 files - and hence they are able to be distributed and sold almost anywhere a music mp3 files is retailed.

For consumers, this represents a massive bonus. Not only do they have to spend time and money searching the internet to find the perfect source of audio books, but they are actually able to purchase music and audio books alongside each other. The economic logic behind this puts a heavily favorable tag on audio book retailing - and has almost certainly contributed greatly to the increase in popularity of audio books.

Cumulative Availability versus Stand-Alone Availability.

Would it be the case that a new audio book released for sale solely on its own stand alone website - would gather enough sales to make it viable? This is the question that many industry insiders are asking themselves. As far as they see it, there are two options for internet / electronic based audio book retailing:

1. Selling alongside other file types.
2. Selling stand alone - or on a site dedicated to audio books.

The issue with the latter option is that in order to attract people to the idea of audio books, they need to think of the idea - themselves. Unfortunately, this is not such a good way to rely on sales of a particular product. Clearly, the best option is to run the sales process alongside a file type which is already a hit with consumers. The Apple ITunes music store is probably the best example of where this retailing strategy has worked best.

By listing audio books next to other types of files (namely music, video, and podcasts), audio books gain the added exposure of being "eluded" to on each and every page that a potential buyer surfs. This way, the consumer doesn't even have to understand what an audio book is before they are actually introduced to it for the first time.