Simply Offers Online Audiobook Rentals

June 2007 — In less than four years, Simply Audiobooks, North America’s top source for audiobooks, has written a new chapter in Internet book retailing. The company is a juggernaut, offering over 10,000 audiobooks for rental—far beyond the reach of any library or bookstore—and in the process has become Canada’s sixth fastest growing company as named by Profit magazine. So how has the upstart retailer pulled it off?

“Simply Audiobooks has simply identified a better business model for audiobook distribution,” said Sean Neville, CEO of Simply Audiobooks. “People who listen to audiobooks are true audiobook lovers. They listen to audiobooks on a regular basis—commuting in their car, while traveling, or during their daily exercise. What Simply Audiobooks offers is selection, availability and convenience.”

Borrowing from the online video rental model popularized by Netflix and Blockbuster, Simply Audiobooks makes its products available on a revolving rental basis. For a monthly fee as low as $11.95, Simply Audiobooks subscribers are able to request one book at a time (or two books for $20.95) through the mail for personal listening. Based on the typical usage experience, club members are able to experience four to ten times the number of books through Simply Audiobooks that they would by paying for an average audiobook title at Barnes & Noble or Borders.

Simply Audiobook’s formula has taken it to the top of the Internet retailing field. Internet Retailer magazine lists the company as one of the top 50 retailers on the Web, alongside such giants as Netflix and the iTunes Store. Simply Audiobooks is ranked 489 on the magazine’s 2006 chart of online eCommerce Web sites by revenue. Despite being copied by at least five other firms, it is the largest pure audiobook company in the world—bigger than all other competitors combined.

Big Business
Audiobooks have become one of the highest-margin products for book publishers. Unit quantities average 10% of the total print runs for most popular titles; the split among various formats includes cassettes (35% of the market), CD (58%) and Web download (7%). Roughly 10% of all audiobooks are commercially rented, with another 35% borrowed from public libraries.

“With 10,000 titles available for immediate delivery, Simply Audiobooks far outpaces libraries,” noted Neville. “Audiobook lovers are willing to pay for availability. They have the option of waiting months for the hottest best-seller to become available at the library—or they can get it today from Simply Audiobooks. And our huge selection means that even obscure books are often obtainable.”

Despite its dominance of the audiobook rental market, Simply Audiobooks has created other options for customers. It offers thousands of titles for purchase in CD, MP3 and cassette formats; its download service, which allows customers to purchase audiobooks for download over the Internet to PCs and ultimately to MP3 devices, has become the second largest on the World Wide Web. Through download, audiobook lovers receive instant gratification, along with a selection of 4,000 top-selling titles in fiction, non-fiction, business, suspense, sci-fi/fantasy, children’s and much more.

Prepaid Model
Simply Audiobooks is the only rental company to offer a prepaid rental option, enabling subscribers to pay up front for a full year’s worth of audio listening. Plans are cancellable at any time, with refunds prorated at the discounted rate—a much-appreciated policy among subscribers.

Recently the company opened two bricks-and-mortar retail stores in its hometown of Toronto, instantly becoming a major player in the physical audiobook retailing category. For more information about Simply Audiobooks, including its subscription plans and its complete selection of audiobooks for rental, purchase or download, go to www.simplyaudiobooks.com.

SOURCE Simply Audiobooks

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