I too loaded up on the audio books offered for free as its really an incredible value, I really don’t think I will go back and forth between audio and reading for the Audible books, as the audible readings give a characterization to the characters and the story, and I would lose that in the scenes I read in plain text. TTS is good when you are already reading text, and need to go audio for some reason, as its a neutral personality. Usually I just change books when I change format, and only use TTS if I’m in the middle of a book, and have to go to the car, and can’t wait to hear what happens next.

I also think its cost prohibitive to have to buy a book and then still pay a reduced price to have the companion audible version. I would tend to pick one or the other. As it is, I have collected so many audible freebies and purchases even before this special, that it will take me years to catch up.

This synchronization along with the eliminated TTS on the “Paperweight” Kindle, makes me think they are trying to increase audible sales.

The whispersync feature leaves me underwhelmed, but I love audio books and the samples included some very fine ones.

Well, there’s one of the disadvantages of the one liners…it’s easy to miss stuff. I reported that deal here:

http://ilmk.wordpress.com/2012/09/10/one-liners-1/

This is a huge deal if only for the number of audio recordings they are giving away. Some of the readers are A-List actors like Elijah Wood, Tim Curry and Anne Hathaway. Great giveaway.

I think it could be reasonably argued that going back to list prices that they had some time prior to the Agency Model (when we did commonly see digital list prices that were the same as hardback prices) is not retaliatory.

The Wholesale Model is a different economic model. The digital list price should not be the same under the Wholesale Model that it is in the Agency Model, I believe. The publisher makes 70% at $12.99 under the Agency Model, and only 50% in the Wholesale Model…it’s not unreasonable for them to want to make the same amount of money by raising the digital list price to achieve that.

Just my thoughts on it, though…