Hypothetical Poll: Does online audio influence textbook purchase?

[kudra]

I'm doing a little market research. The motivation is in regard to David and Helen in China, Phyllis Ni Zhang, Yuan-Yuan Meng, Donald K. Chang, and Irene C. Liu, Yale University Press; ISBN 0887102166(simplified), ISBN: 0887101909(traditional), but really the poll can apply to any text with accompanying audio.

I originally heard about D+H since it was used at Yale as the 2nd year text. I was directed to the online audio. After listening to the audio, I looked around for used copies, couldn't find any at the time, and ended up buying the book. This seems like it could be a typical path to purchasing a foreign language text. It is kind of the model used at chinesepod.com too.

From the publisher's point of view, do you think their bottom line is hurt or helped by having audio on line?

It seems to me there are 2 possible benefits for the publisher to have free online audio.

• They get people to buy the book after seeing that the audio works for them. Basically people are willing to pay a premium because they get to test it first listening to the audio. Or put another way, more people will buy because the online audio makes the purchase less risky, especially for self study learners.
  
• Because people get to test it with the audio, they are less likely to end up as dissatisfied customers, who are upset at buying an expensive text that does not fit their needs or live up to their expectations. The result is fewer negative reviews on amazon or chinese-forums, which presumably is what the publisher would want.
  

So take the poll, feel free to add comments about how free online audio influences your text book purchases -- not just about D+H, but any text you may have bought, or even hypothetical purchases you haven't made yet, or would have made in the past.

Note added: If you have bought or considered buying D+H, please see the specific poll.

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/9378-specific-poll-does-online-audio-influence-textbook-purchase

[Roee]

These days, there's this "hyped" online site that aims at teaching Mandarin, it's the "talk of the town". After listening to its "Free Audio" it's enough for me to decide not to purchase any of their other services or future books or anything else, due to the quality and content as it is not as what I'm looking for.

So, it's "exposure" but can also go either way. Now, if this Audio service is a MAJOR MAJOR exposure and without it the product had nothing, than for sure it's a good thing unless the audio is total crap. Some people would buy it...

If I totally missed your point let me know

[roddy]

I don't know if you've missed the point, but I for one don't know what site you are talking about.

I think from a publishers point of view, putting a complete sample chapter online, complete with audio, text, exercises - whatever is provided - is a better strategy than putting all the audio online and nothing else (I'm not sure what YUP does). A slightly far-fetched analogy is that a car salesman will do better letting potential customers take automobiles for an hour's test drive rather than allowing them to take the driver's seat home to sit in for a week.

[gougou]

A slightly far-fetched analogy is that a car salesman will do better letting potential customers take automobiles for an hour's test drive rather than allowing them to take the driver's seat home to sit in for a week.

Thank you for not choosing a pet shop for your analogy...

As for the original question, I can't imagine that putting the audio online is going to help a lot. If I may also go into far-fetched analogies, that is a bit like a pizza delivery service offering free red wine - regardless of whether you order pizza at their place or not. While it is going to attract some customers you would not have gotten without the offer, there will be plenty of people taking the freebies only, which otherwise you could have sold for a profit.

The problem about the audio is that it is usable as a stand-alone resource. For smarter ways of adding value through the web, check out the companion websites of most university textbooks: what you'll find there are multiple choice questions and chapter reviews, close to useless without the original text.

[kudra]

regarding petshops, pizza and cars:

Let me explain in more detail what happened in my case, and break these analogies, as helpfull as I am sure their authors were trying to be:mrgreen: .

I was planning to just listen to the audio, and this worked for the 1st few chapters, but after that, there was enough new vocabulary and patterns that I wasn't really understanding the audio. To me this meant that the book was right at the level I needed to be studying. So I ended up buying it.

On the other hand, if you can't understand almost all of chapter 1 audio without the book, it is probably not right -- something easier is more appropriate at that point in you studies. Likewise, if you understand all the audio, then it might be good listening practice, but you would be unhappy if you bought the book since it wasn't going to teach you much.

From this I conclude that the risk of freeloaders is there, but if they can really freeload, then they don't need the book anyway.

@ roddy

YUP does put chap 1 on the books web page, (simplified version)