Five Things About the Audiobook of The B-Team
Posted on January 15, 2013 Posted by John Scalzi 37 Comments
One: Here’s the link to it at Audible.
Two: Note the price. Cheap! All the episodes are at this point similarly priced. You could get the audio and the text versions of each episode and still be well under the cost of your daily Starbucks hit! Hint! Hint! Hint!
Three: The audiobook version is read by William Dufris, who read Old Man’s War, The Ghost Brigades and The Last Colony. He rocks it.
Four: If you go to that link above, you’ll see there is a special deal available to you on the audio of “The B-Team.” No, I’m not going to tell you what it is, you gotta link through. What, do I have to do everything for you? Suffice to say you may find the special deal intriguing. Especially if you’ve not delved into audiobooks before and are wondering what the hubbub is all about. So clickity-click, friends.
Five: Audible now lets you pre-order, so if you’re so inclined you can pre-order the rest of the episodes so they’re ready for you the instant they go live. Oh, look, here’s a link to the audio of Episode Two.
And there you have it.
Update: For those of you who want it (and you do want it! You do!): A direct link to that special deal I was hinting at. Note: This special deal is available only for two weeks from today. So get to it! Also, this special deal is independent of any other things Audible might be doing, as I understand it).
Also, look! An Audible page for all the Human Division episodes! To make your pre-ordering easy and fun!
Nice. Didn’t need the special deal to want all the episodes, but cool for you and for Audible to get that out there. Since my inbox appears bereft this morning, I’m assuming the one week advanced read of each installment from Tor only applied to Episode One?
Hubert:
Yep, sorry.
Don’t use your free Audible book on a 99¢ book! Buy Johns book and get a big $30 or $40 dollar book free.
That did not come out well. Audible offers a free audiobook for trial members. But using the gift to purchase a 99¢ book would be foolish.
One would be a fool to use a audible credit for the book, just saying. Buy it and save the credit. As for special deal…. must be a bust. I see nothing special.
This looks very, very interesting. I just snagged the audiobook. Now I need to hurry up and read The Last Colony so that I move on to this. It’s starting to taunt me….
In a related vein, I know that The Human Division can spoil some things that happen in The Last Colony, so that’s why I’m waiting to read this. What about Zoe’s Tale? Should I read that before I move on to The Human Division, too?
As an audible member I got it for .69 – a bargain at twice the price- and I picked up the ebook for .99. Sad to see that it was not whispersync enabled though. I love being able to listen in the car and read in the house. Being a short story, it is not a big deal, but it would be a nice feature. I don’t know who is responsible for setting that up- Tor or Amazon?
@Greg, that isn’t the deal John is talking about. You just have to like Audible’s Facebook page. Which I already had, but I still got it for free.
Reblogged this on The AudioBookaneers and commented:
The first installment of John Scalzi’s new serialized Old Man’s War-universe novel, The Human Division, is out: “The B-Team”, with the remainder of the episodes up for pre-order for $0.99/$0.69. And Audible is doing a “first one’s free” deal if you Like their Facebook page. A couple “missing” things are (1) for ease of use, just let me spend one credit and pre-order all of them? (2) I can’t (yet at least) “gift” future episodes, and (3) I really wish Audible would NOT default to using a full credit on titles which cost this little. It’s just an accidental click waiting to happen. Anyway, happy listening, and tune back in on Friday for Dave’s Listen-a-Long discussion!
Actually, even ordering all 13 episodes at once would only be about $9, which is a pretty poor use of a credit (which depending on your membership level costs you between $11.50 and $14.99). I got the first one free and ordered the other 12 for something like $8.68.
Nice! I’ve really been looking forward to this book. How about we quit dorking around though and just let me download all of them at once? :) Oh, okay I’ll play this silly game. Put my pre-order for the next 12 installments.
Thanks! It has now been downloaded to my Galaxy Note –for FREE!
You are completely rocking the $.99 price point, which I’m happy to see. It’s become something of a tough call of late whether to price something that low. Practically if you’re doing a serial you want that price because it encourages people to buy more installments (it’s a fairly painless price point). However, of late the $.99 price appears to be losing its luster. For a while it was “it’s so cheap that it’s easy to take a risk on it” but lately it seems audiences are treating it as “the price where lousy books go to die.”
But I think Scalzi + serial + $.99 might equal “hey, the price is OK again.”
Though I’m sort of curious on the economics of it from your side of things. I mean, I know how it works on my side, but I assume your side has more fiddly bits.
Woohoo! The price has gone down from when I looked at it a couple months ago ($5.99). Definitely going to pick up the audio version now too. I wonder if Audible will give a discount for having purchased the Kindle version?
Oddly, I get the following when I go to the page for The Human Division on Amazon:
Formats
Kindle Edition — $0.99 —
Audible Audio Edition, Unabridged $0.87 or $14.95 with your Audible.com Gold membership
…so something seems messed up, somewhere on Amazon’s end.
$14.95 is the cost of a credit under the Audible Gold plan, so they list that as the “cost” of every book. But some books are cheaper on Audible if you pay cash versus the cost of the credit.
Incidentally the installments cost me $.69 each on Audible. I am on the 2 credits a month plan. Don’t know if there are tiered discounts.
I don’t do well with installments – my impatience is legendary. I’ll just wait for the full book when I can deal with it on my own terms.
And now I just found out that the notebook that I use for notes on my novel was thoroughly peed on by my dog. Except now he’s my wife’s dog. Time for one of those shaming photos.
@Joel: I’m on the 1 credit per month plan and the episode and preorders cost me $0.69 each as well. It was probably the easiest sale they ever made. :)
The good news is that it downloaded to my Kindle early this morning. The bad news is that I’m a third of the way through Great North Road, so I probably won’t get to it for a month.
I’m still amazed that you can get anything (besides a can of beans) for 99 cents anymore. It’s a good deal without getting it free!
Is the audiobook DRM-free, like the eBook? (It would be – pleasantly – un-Audible-like, if so.)
Wilson: Nope, it is loaded with DRM goodness
Will there be a great compiled audio book once all the episodes are out, like there will be a Great Compiled Paperback? Although I’m happy to buy the ebooks in serialized form, I’d rather wait and have the audiobook as one file (less to scroll through on my iPod), even though that will cost me the cost of a credit ($15) instead of $0.69×12.
PS Also, John, I don’t know if you have anything to do with audiobook casting choices, so I don’t know if you’re the one I should thank, but I am grateful that the same voice actor is reading The Human Division as read the rest of the (male PoV) OMW books. I was a little afraid it was going to be Wil Wheaton. Don’t get me wrong, I like it when Wil Wheaton reads your books, but I prefer to have voice actor continuity in a series. So thanks!
I’ve never before listened to an audio book–I’m very visually oriented and those things on the side of my head for hearing tend to turn off as soon as my eyes see something shiny. Look–a squirrel! But I am going to try this one. It’s downloading now.
If you preordered from Audible, they’ll charge original price and then refund the amount over 99 (69 for members) cents as a separate transaction.
I did the freebie audible version *and* got the DRM free edition from Kobo and I still felt like I’m stealing from you.
Pre-ordered the whole kit-and-kaboodle. If I download and listen as they come in, maybe I’ll actually keep up!
Got E1 and pre-ordered all the rest, and broke down and got the other OMW universe audio books too. Have listened to OMW but not the others. Now I just need to plan a road trip.
Sold. I love listening to audio books while I work. Loved Red Shirts, listened to that last week. Twice.
@gbtaylor: The page for B-Team on audible’s site says “Whispersync for Voice-ready” when I look at it. Did it change from when you looked, or were you looking at the page that listed all of them, or did you miss it? I dunno, but FYI, you might want to go here to the B-Team page on Audible.com and refresh if you were there before.
This is awesome! .99 audiobooks? Who can resist that?
I saw a TV commercial for Audible.com this morning. Since it seems Redshirts is on every single Audible ad lately (or maybe it just feels that way because John’s been showing so many…) I kept expecting Redshirts to be the next book shown in the ad. Alas, they missed it completely.
Liking the audiobook so far, but is there really a tiny observation *desk* wedged above the Polk’s cargo hold?
Wow. That made it into the audio as well. Those poor diplomats. wedged into that tiny normally unused observation desk.
[Deleted because it’s off topic and a little spammy besides — JS]
I am just hoping that the audio version will be available DRM-free legally some time in the future. I am happily buying the epubs from Kobo, but I won’t buy Audible’s DRM versions. Any chance of getting them out to Tantor, Downpour, or Barnes and Noble so that I can send some money your way and get an MP3 version (legally)? I love the series but I have been waiting to read past the B team so that I can read or listen as my situation dictates. Keep up the great work.