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[Alexander Wilson <alex AT awstudios.net>]

On Apr 8, 2004, at 2:03 PM, Ian Meyer wrote:

> >  Self Portrait, Bob Dylan
> >  iTunes $13.99
> >  Amazon.com $10.99
>
> Yes, Amazon is a lot cheaper, but you *do* get 24 songs for $13.99, so 
> its still cheaper than buying per song. As long as the iTMS has been 
> around, there have been large compilations/albums and multi-disc sets 
> that have cost more then $9.99

As the size of the audio collection becomes bigger, I think there's a 
point where the seller's manufacturing and shipping of physical CDs 
become about equal to (or even cheaper than) the seller's bandwidth 
costs. I run an audio project that does very well selling pieces under 
7 minutes for 25 cents, under 30 minutes for a dollar, currently up to 
1 hour for two dollars. Now that's cheap and, after royalties, my 
biggest cost against those revenues are for bandwidth and hosting, but 
I still come out ahead on a per-download basis. If I was a behemoth 
like Apple who could negotiate for a better deal with ISPs or run my 
own, I'd obviously be in better shape, but bandwidth and hosting still 
isn't free.

An hour-long recording at Amazon is going to likely be over $10. But if 
I scale my prices up to twenty hours for an unabridged novel, then 
suddenly Amazon's offering the same thing for $25-30, and to those 
people who don't have broadband, that's a MUCH better deal than 
downloading, and I don't know how much I could lower my prices at that 
price range with the same royalty rates and not lose money after 
bandwidth costs, transaction fees, and other costs.

Alex.

www.awstudios.net - Alexander Wilson Studios
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