Audible.com

Hands up all those who have listened to audio books! Plenty, I presume and if you are listening, you'll be free to do just that - surrender and listen at the same time.

This is the main advantage of audio books. You can do two things at once, whether it's travelling, ironing, gardening, working, making love or sitting on the potty. While not suggesting that some of these activities are a waste of time, there are tedious periods in our lives which are not utilised as much as they should be.

There are also circumstances where disability has taken away the pleasure of reading, be it through blindness or a simple inability to turn pages. In such cases, audio books can help by returning a little independence and pleasure to life.

Where once only a few audio books existed, now there are thousands upon thousands available. Virtually every successful new book has its audio equivalent.

Audible.com - are you listening now?

Science Fiction people like ourselves have many audio books available on the market and now this format is available on-line through audible.com

Have a look at this American site. You'll see it's very well marketed, even to the extent of giving away free mp3 players to new subscribers. There is a huge list of audio books to choose from, including about 400 Science Fiction.

All you have to do is pay for a book using a credit card, much in the same way you would purchase an electronic book, then download it to your computer via a program called audiblemanager which they supply.

This is where a problem can arise. Everything works very smoothly but download times, depending on the volume, can be quite long. For example, 12 megabytes took me about an hour to download using a 56k modem, and an 18 megabyte book took considerably longer.

This was for the lowest sound quality available - better quality necessitates so much download time that the exercise would be impractical. However, even the lowest quality sounded fine to my ears and listening to the book, I could find no difference that made a difference.

The answer to the problem about download times is, of course, broadband. This isn't available everywhere in the UK at the moment but it won't be long until it is universal in all modern countries. Once we've got rid of the slow modems, downloading large files through the net will not be so daunting and companies like Audible should see a big boost in earnings.

Prices are cheaper than buying the same book on tape and CD - for example, 'Mars' by Ben Bova which I downloaded from Audible costs about $12 whereas the hardcopy versions range in price from $17.50 to $25.00.

However, this is what you should expect, I hear you say. After all, you're using your own recording materials. Given that a blank CD costs much less than a dollar on which you could record thirty or more books at the lowest sound definition, there is a considerable saving to be made here.

I also downloaded 'The Best Of Asimov Science Fiction Magazine 2' which ran for seven and a half hours. For entertainment time, this works out at pretty good value.

The disadvantage to an audio book is the ability to reference sections within. It's easy to flick through a book but more difficult to find certain sections in a large file.

Nonetheless, we shouldn't be looking at this situation as if it was a matter of either/or. Both are facets of the same thing and should be viewed as complementary to each other.

More books will be downloaded when faster connections are universal.

Many times in the past I've suffered from eyestrain from reading too much but, apart from the ex-wife, earstrain has never been a problem.

www.Audible.com

Rod MacDonald

UPDATE:

The following additions must be made about Audible.com which was reviewed in last month's Crowsnest.

The MP3 player arrived, having taken a month to do so by FedEx. Surface postage from the USA to the UK was used which is understandable considering the item is free when taken out with a twelve month subscription.

The cheapest subscription costs $14.95 and for this you get an audio book plus a periodical every month. The periodical can be daily, weekly or monthly. Delivery of the MP3 player will be much quicker in North America, of course, but the wait was well worth it considering the good quality of the device.

This is the blurb about it -

'Audible's own "Otis" is a 64mb digital audio player, designed and manufactured to our specifications to provide the best Audible listening experience. The Otis plays Audible content in formats 2 and 3, as well as your favorite MP3 and Windows Media audio files.'

It's also Mac compatible. It can store up to 17 hours of material. A relatively easy process to download Audible's files from the computer to the MP3 player, connection is made via a USB port. The device allows much greater listening flexibility and, being portable, the books can be taken anywhere. It's also easier to find sections within a book.

Concerning download times, there seems no other alternative to a long wait when using a standard 56k modem. If you have such a modem, then it's down to your patience (or lack of it) if you wish to proceed further.

My advice to anyone with thoughts of using the above company to receive audio books and magazines would be to first buy a single book, download it to their computer and judge the quality thereafter.

Rod MacDonald