> Based on your link, you'd be looking at something in the range of $24,000 for ASOIAF. Even if you double that you're looking at $48,000. If we factor in 50% (WTF?) rev share with Audible, that's ~2400 units to break even.
That's ONLY production-cost, it doesn't take into account the royalty/license for the actual content-author and the cut the book-publisher takes for "publishing" it. I doubt that the author takes a smaller share just because the book was recorded instead of printed.
If you assume that production cost should make up max. 10% of that revenue (like the actual cost to design a cover and print a book), then the break-even shifts ALOT farther away...
> Yeah, I know I hand-waved a bunch of minutia, but my point is that the volume of sales needed to start making a profit, even considering a large rev share, isn't _that_ high.
Yeah, the scale is indeed hard to estimate, and I can't find ANY statistics on the actual volume-size of the market (actual amount a bestseller Audiobook has sold)
But the stat from the same source stating that "Audiobook revenue accounted for around 3.8% of the book publishing" is an indication that despite glorious growth-figures of the Audiobook industry, the actual market-size is still VERY small even in comparison to the book-publishing market.
AND at the same time, Audible controls ~50% of that market, and drives consumption with Spotify-like flatrate offers.
Making big upfront investments for Audiobook production seems to be a risky call for a publisher then. Unless you have a title like ASOIAF and set the price at 36 USD I guess ;)
That's ONLY production-cost, it doesn't take into account the royalty/license for the actual content-author and the cut the book-publisher takes for "publishing" it. I doubt that the author takes a smaller share just because the book was recorded instead of printed.
If you assume that production cost should make up max. 10% of that revenue (like the actual cost to design a cover and print a book), then the break-even shifts ALOT farther away...
> Yeah, I know I hand-waved a bunch of minutia, but my point is that the volume of sales needed to start making a profit, even considering a large rev share, isn't _that_ high.
Yeah, the scale is indeed hard to estimate, and I can't find ANY statistics on the actual volume-size of the market (actual amount a bestseller Audiobook has sold)
But the stat from the same source stating that "Audiobook revenue accounted for around 3.8% of the book publishing" is an indication that despite glorious growth-figures of the Audiobook industry, the actual market-size is still VERY small even in comparison to the book-publishing market.
AND at the same time, Audible controls ~50% of that market, and drives consumption with Spotify-like flatrate offers.
Making big upfront investments for Audiobook production seems to be a risky call for a publisher then. Unless you have a title like ASOIAF and set the price at 36 USD I guess ;)