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> From the technical standpoint, an app to download/listen for audio is not a big feat. With adequate DRM? It definitely is a big feat. Just distributing th

by Shorel 4y ago

> From the technical standpoint, an app to download/listen for audio is not a big feat. With adequate DRM? It definitely is a big feat. Just distributing the files, without any type of encryption, is far from trivial. The fact you link to Cloudflare demonstrates you know you can't host the servers yourself =) Almost anything for ten users is trivial, doing it at scale is hard work.

SergeAx 4y ago
I link to Bandwidth Alliance to emphasize that there is a way to lower a CDN bill. On my previous job we served video via AWS CloudFront and even negotiated a special price for that and S3. Any CDN with their own object storage will hanlde heavy lifting of audio, it is not a big deal and not that expensive to the point of making a garden variety CDN on Digital Ocean or other cloud provider nonsensical. I have to research about DRM, but isn't it goes out of the box on Android and iOS?
- quesera 4y ago
  I would assert that network transfer costs for audiobook sales are a vanishingly insignificant part of the total cost of running an audiobook publishing business. Rounds to zero, I suspect. This is based on a good knowledge of the size of audiobooks, good knowledge of the price of network transfer, and a reasonable guess on the number of books sold.
  - SergeAx 4y ago
    What is a major cost then, in your opinion?
    - quesera 4y ago
      I'm guessing, but: Marketing, payroll, royalties, and operations. In that order. Network transfer fees would come out of operations, and are probably less than 10% of same.
lolinder 4y ago
I wonder about DRM. With Audible taking such a big cut, it would be interesting to see a platform that gives creators an 80-90% cut of DRM-free sales. Does piracy represent such a large threat to sales that making >2x more per sale wouldn't be worth it? Sanderson is distributing raw audio to all backers, so he clearly doesn't think so.
- plorg 4y ago
  There are a lot of providers who sell DRM-free audiobooks. Until Spotify bought them Findaway was the biggest "distributor" for a lot of these companies. I don't personally look forward to yet another industry locking away content behind a proprietary, subscription streaming service.
- SergeAx 4y ago
  Most of Amazon ebooks are easily available via Z-Library, so I thing that DRM is not very helpful in fending off piracy.
  - jdougan 4y ago
    Is z-library back up somewhere?
    - SergeAx 4y ago
      It was always available via TOR network.
- zargon 4y ago
  BTW, all of Sanderson's ebooks published by Tor or self-published (Dragonsteel) are DRM-free.

by Shorel 4y ago

SergeAx 4y ago

I link to Bandwidth Alliance to emphasize that there is a way to lower a CDN bill. On my previous job we served video via AWS CloudFront and even negotiated a special price for that and S3. Any CDN with their own object storage will hanlde heavy lifting of audio, it is not a big deal and not that expensive to the point of making a garden variety CDN on Digital Ocean or other cloud provider nonsensical. I have to research about DRM, but isn't it goes out of the box on Android and iOS?

quesera 4y ago
I would assert that network transfer costs for audiobook sales are a vanishingly insignificant part of the total cost of running an audiobook publishing business. Rounds to zero, I suspect. This is based on a good knowledge of the size of audiobooks, good knowledge of the price of network transfer, and a reasonable guess on the number of books sold.
- SergeAx 4y ago
  What is a major cost then, in your opinion?
  - quesera 4y ago
    I'm guessing, but: Marketing, payroll, royalties, and operations. In that order. Network transfer fees would come out of operations, and are probably less than 10% of same.

lolinder 4y ago

I wonder about DRM. With Audible taking such a big cut, it would be interesting to see a platform that gives creators an 80-90% cut of DRM-free sales. Does piracy represent such a large threat to sales that making >2x more per sale wouldn't be worth it? Sanderson is distributing raw audio to all backers, so he clearly doesn't think so.

plorg 4y ago
There are a lot of providers who sell DRM-free audiobooks. Until Spotify bought them Findaway was the biggest "distributor" for a lot of these companies. I don't personally look forward to yet another industry locking away content behind a proprietary, subscription streaming service.
SergeAx 4y ago
Most of Amazon ebooks are easily available via Z-Library, so I thing that DRM is not very helpful in fending off piracy.
- jdougan 4y ago
  Is z-library back up somewhere?
  - SergeAx 4y ago
    It was always available via TOR network.
zargon 4y ago
BTW, all of Sanderson's ebooks published by Tor or self-published (Dragonsteel) are DRM-free.