DANG! That’s One Expensive Bible.
While searching our Corrlinks MP3 database I came across the audiobook version of the Holy Bible read by Christopher Glyn. I thought it interesting and checked to see how much it was. Would you believe if I wanted to buy the complete bible it would cost me $1,426.80. You see the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and the contracted company that offers the music for sale (Keefe Group, Advanced Technologies Group) prohibits album sales and only offers individual tracks. This audiobook bible is split up by one chapter per MP3. There are 1,189 chapters in the Bible and they charge us $1.20 per MP3. I looked into it and found that this same audiobook could be purchased by anyone in the free world for as little as $14.95 and if you have a membership with Amazon, Spotify, or several other sites you can get it for free.
I just couldn’t come to grips with that. I mean almost $1,500 for an audiobook of the Bible?! I wanted to see what else they were selling us. With a quick search I found several other audiobooks, while not quite as high as the bible, they were still prohibitively expensive. Here is a short list of audiobooks I found, how many tracks, and the total price to purchase them.
The Last of the Mohicans – by James Fennimore Cooper 161 tracks – $193.20
Mysterious Island – by Jules Verne 204 tracks – $244.80
The Voyage Out – by Virginia Woolf 165 tracks – $198.00
Pride and Prejudice – by Jane Austen 105 tracks – $126.00
Anne of Green Gables – by Lucy Maud Montgomery 88 tracks – $105.60
Gulliver’s Travels – by Johnathan Swift 105 tracks – $126.00
There may be some inmates that are very wealthy and are indifferent about spending, but I surly can not afford well into the hundreds and some into the two hundred dollar range let alone fourteen hundred dollars for the Bible, nor can 99.9% of the inmate population. Which begs the question; why are these even offered to us in the first place?
It seems to be a piggish sales model where it’s flaws are exposed with audiobooks or albums with many tracks. By not offering album sales and only individual track sales they make more money if someone chooses to buy all the tracks on a particular album. The price gouging gets greater and more apparent the more tracks that are on an album. For example, one of my favorite Broadway shows is “Les Miserables”. I wanted the album which had 43 tracks on it. Because each track costs $1.20 I’m ashamed to say that I spent $51.60 for the same album anyone else could purchase for about $15.00 or less. The thing is we are literally a “captive” customer base, we don’t have the option of shopping elsewhere.
Even with licensing fees, download fees, and markups, the prices are extremely high, especially for inmates who make about 17 cents an hour. With all that said, I still don’t understand why those ridiculously high priced audiobooks are even offered, unless that is the point. They can tell the public that they offer inmates the option to purchase these things while at the same time a carrot is being dangled in front of us, yet it remains quite out of reach.
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