Are audio books expensive? Well, it’s a tough question. What kind of audio books – downloaded audio books, audio books on CD, or books on tape, which titles? And compared to what – the old fashioned book or to other audio titles? Let us examine the prices and then take a look at the factors that affect the price of audio books. Then, we will try to answer the question: Are audio books expensive?

The prices of audio books vary from free of charge to up to 100$. In most cases, comparing the same audio books titles we got the following results: books on tape (or audio books on cassettes) were the most expensive ones, Audio books on cd had a similar price to the original old fashioned book and MP3 audio books or the cheapest ones.

There are three main factors that affect the prices of the audio books:

1. Production costs – the production costs includes the labor and material prices. The labor in audio books includes the recording of the reader’s voice reading the book whereas in the old fashioned books it includes the printing of the book. The materials used are various – For an audio book on CD a CD is required, for a book on tape a cassette is required, for the old fashioned book a paper is required and surprisingly for an MP3 audio book there are no materials needed.

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2. Copy rights – The copy rights are the commission the author get for each book published. The sum of money is the same of course for all types of books and audio books.

3. Publishing costs – The publishing’ costs are the same in all the types of audio books – audio book on cd and books on tape. They all need space like the space needed to store the old fashioned book. Yet, once again the MP3 audio book need no space at all.

To sum up, if you have a MP3 player and if the book you are looking for exist on an audio book, we advise you to get the MP3 version. You can even get free MP3 players and download free audio books.

 

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