No one has figured out the audiobook market. Look at the two leaders:

iTunes: Pay normal prices—the same price as a hardcover book—to download the audio. But wait—I can’t backup my audiobooks to iCloud? I have to repurchase the audiobook for each device I own—or every time I upgrade? And these are Audible audiobooks? I’ll pass.

Audible: Same pricing—and I can download to any device Audible supports? Cool—plus saved purchase history so I don’t need to buy the same audiobook multiple times. But wait—I have to subscribe to get an audiobook a month? Or I can pay $150 for 12 audiobooks? This subscription model is expensive—the basic Hulu+ subscription is $8 a month! Am I sure I want to keep paying a subscription rate for 1 book vice a ton of movies and tv shows?

I’m tempted to take my chances on BitTorrent.

Seth Godin talked a lot about audio books—and noted back in 2007 they were priced too high (unfortunately—they still are). Tim Ferriss started a book club based on audiobooks he’s secured audio rights for. Pretty sly—and effective for him because his fan base readily absorbs the pitch (even though there’s no backend for club “members” improving by listening to the books—no accountability groups, no local meetups, no other efforts beyond the sale to deepen relationships between listeners and authors—but that’s another blog post).

Though effective—iTunes and Audible are examples of how pricing and purchasing audiobooks is still shitty.

Why would someone pay the same price for a hardcover book as a audiobook? How do authors cheapen the relationship with their fans by making it harder to buy multiple versions of their work?

Amazon owns our expectations of ebook pricing—if an ebook is priced over $10, it better be worth it (this is what textbook ebooks get horribly wrong by pricing themselves over $20). But no one owns our expectations on audiobook pricing. With prices as high as they are—I’d rather choose to get the audiobook OR get a paper copy OR get an electronic copy. I’m not getting more than one version.

Who’s going to buy a 1Q84 audiobook for $34?

Current pricing is self-fulfilling. Prices are high because we assume people won’t buy multiple copies—but what if they would? What if it’s an add-on cost vice a new product cost? What if readers hadn’t considered an audiobook because of the protectionist pricing and a business model based on scarcity of what a reader will read in the same work?

Amazon should bring it’s Matchbook service to audiobooks!

I’m assuming they’ve made their money back for buying Audible in 2008. Great—now it’s time to challenge pricing assumptions about audiobooks. Audible was the frontrunner for audiobooks—and combined with Amazon is the clear winner now. Amazon can become the clearing house for audio just like it’s the clearing house for ebooks (does anyone really use a Nook?) by doing more aggressive pricing. It’s already winner of audiobook production—why not leverage it’s platform and complimentary successes to complete conquer the space?

They’re willing to take a core platform (ebooks) and drop prices to get people onboard—why not do the same thing with audiobooks?

If I already have a book in one form, it’s an incremental cost that will convince me to buy a different version. Not a new/similar upfront cost. Yes—Amazon can charge full price to people who haven’t gotten another version over their network, but paying $14 for an audiobook when I’ve got the Kindle version is a too much.

Hell—$14 is too much for any four-hour ebook when I can listen to a similar length of podcasts (maybe even by the same author) for free. When I can watch the same amonut of keynotes on Youtube for free. I could be content with just one version—but I could learn so much more with multiple versions. Play this one right—either Amazon or Apple. A legion of repeat purchase readers are waiting.