Time seems to be short for everyone these days, and most of us do our best to maximize the efficiency of each minute in the day. Between my day job, time with the family, chores on the farm and around the house, and fishing, hunting and trapping, sitting back and reading a book sometimes feels like a waste of precious time.
I do happen to listen to a lot of podcasts. They’re all the rage these days, with a podcast available for just about everything you can think of. The beauty is that you can listen while you work, maximizing efficiency with no wasted time. Just pop on some headphones or plug into the car stereo and you’re multitasking in no time.
With no time to read and earbuds in most pockets of youngsters these days, audio books seem to make perfect sense….on the surface, at least. That’s what I thought before I headed into the woods. A book recently recommended by an Outdoor Sporting Library reader happened to be available on Audible, the booming digital audiobook company owned by Amazon. They offer audio versions of most popular book titles available for instant download and listening at your convenience.
I looked up the title: “Never Cry Wolf” by Farley Mowat, and clicked the link to the audio download. Sticker shock!!! My choices were to buy the audio book for $20, or save with a monthly subscription to Audible for $14.95, with a credit toward one book download each month. Mind you, I’d just purchased the hard copy of the same book for less than $4.00, shipped to my door!
Time sure is costly these days, and not just for busy consumers. I looked into the seemingly astronomical charges for audio books, and it was pretty eye-opening. It turns out that studio time to record an audio book, which often spans many hours of finished product, can be as costly as producing a record album. Add to that the cut the author needs to make a profit, and the overhead the big guys charge for storing, hosting and delivering the audio content to consumers. Plus, unlike the overproduced paperback that flies off the shelves and shows up on the secondhand market for pennies in a few months, the market for audio books is (though growing) quite small.
So about the audio book I meant to listen to during the long day of trapline scouting…..turns out I didn’t pull the trigger. It may well have been worth the time savings, but a little thing called stubbornness got in the way, and I refused to break down and pay $20 for a book I already owned. So the review of Mowat’s book had to wait a while.
As far as audio books go, though, I think we all should give them some thought. The industry is growing exponentially as more folks realize the time saved by listening instead of reading. As in most cases of very small niches, the offering of outdoor sporting books is very limited, but as audio book demand increases and technology helps to lower costs, we may see a variety of outdoors audio books offered in the future. Until then, folks like me will have to struggle to find the free time to read.
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