Not a rant but an open letter to understanding.

[Nick]

Where is your iTunes account registered? Not sure how iTunes determines region but there could be some difference there.

[Aloha]

I see Ready Player One on Audible. But I'm from the U.S.

http://www.audible.com/search/ref=sr_...

[Aloha]

Here's a better link:

http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?...

[Charles]

Possibly either

a) the publisher didn't allow selling the copy to your region or,

b) Audible doesn't sell to your region.

[Aloha]

That's too bad, Mark.

[Cy]

Don't bother trying to make laws make sense. It's like asking why you can't use your hands playing soccer/football.

[Kate]

Most big English language publishers will buy exclusive rights to sell in their region, non-exclusive rights to sell in other non-English language regions, and no rights to sell in other English language regions.
It looks like Audible just isn't set up to fine grain checking what region you're from or their erring on the side of caution and only selling to regions where the publisher has an exclusive right.
It's also possible that the publishers don't have rights in your region, but iTunes feels it can ignore this because Apple has a better relationship with publishers than Amazon does.

It's incredibly frustrating that there's no decent competition to audible that might make them get their ass in gear.

[Charles]

Kate wrote: It's also possible that the publishers don't have rights in your region, but iTunes feels it can ignore this because Apple has a better relationship with publishers than Amazon does.

Actually, Apple can't violate rates either. The only thing iTunes sells to us here in the Philippines actually are just Apps. Not videos, not books, not music.

It's probably a retailer limitation, but if you're able to buy other products from Audible, then it's a publisher-set restriction.

[Tora]

I had that problem here in South Korea--many books I knew were available didn't show up when I searched for them, and if I tried to get at them through amazon, where they showed up in a search, it would tell me they weren't available in my area.

I took a trip back to visit my family in the US, and while I was there, I tried again to buy something I wanted, and it still didn't show up when I searched! So I contacted audible's customer service, saying that I'd been living in Korea but was currently in the US and wanted to buy some audiobooks but they were showing as unavailable. The customer service rep changed something in my account to show that I was in the US, and then I could buy everything I wanted.

They were having a sale on series at the time, and I took advantage to buy a gajillion books while I was in the US. When I returned to South Korea, I expected it to go back to not finding things I wanted, but it never did! Either I've happened only to search for things that are available here, or when he changed the setting, it didn't change back after I returned to Korea. I haven't looked too closely into it, because I don't want to attract attention if I'm not supposed to be able to get them, but...maybe something similar could work for you, if you have a friend in the US or UK who could contact customer service from a US or UK IP address, (or you, via tunneling).