You've loaded your CDs in to your iPod, you've assembled playlists and discovered the joys of shuffle mode. But the first flush of gadget love is fading. What can you do to re-kindle the affair? Why not experiment with digital audio books? There are several obvious advantages. With books on tape/CD, you're often juggling several cassettes or discs. In contrast, an unabridged doorstopper by Tolstoy fits easily on an MP3 player/iPod, with space for more. And thanks to electronic book marking, you can keep your place on several digital audio books at once.
That said, choice is still fairly limited. If you don't have broadband, you may have to settle for lower sound quality or lengthy download times. And, at the moment, digital rights management and copy protection measures restrict what you can do with your "books on file". But there are bargains on offer, along with spoken word audio content you can't find elsewhere.
In business since 1997, the market leader is Audible.com, which now offers 18,000 items on its site. Not all are digital audio books: many are alternative forms of digital audio spoken word content - digests of magazines, such as MIT's Technology Review, and newspapers, such as the New York Times, authors reading short stories, short interviews and radio shows.
Audible's site has various tools for finding/filtering content - search engines, directories, customer reviews and more. In general, pricing is competitive and you can listen to samples online before you buy. Initially, the selection can seem very late 90s libertarian net geek (with science fiction, Ayn Rand novels and tech business titles, such as Alan Deutschman's The Second Coming of Steve Jobs highlighted on the front page). Drill down and you find literary classics (James, Twain and more), anti-corporate bestsellers (Fast Food Nation or Dude, Where's My Country), tech business classics (The Cluetrain Manifesto), big idea titles (Greg Easterbrook's The Progress Paradox), modern fiction (Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections) and pop science (Linked, Albert-Laszlo Barabasi's introduction to network science). Audible also sells its own original content, ranging from stand-up by Robin Williams to short briefings/ interviews with technology and business innovators.
Aside from buying individual titles, heavy users can subscribe to Audible. The basic $14.99 (£8) plan includes one audio book a month, plus one magazine/newspaper subscription, plus Audible's own Otis player free. It's no iPod, especially in terms of storage space, but it's fine for audio books. If you live in the Richmond-Upon-Thames area, you can try out the Otis. The borough's libraries lend players and digital audio books.
Buying from Audible is secure and simple enough for experienced net shoppers. Initially, your purchases are stored in your Audible library. You can download them from there, but need to select a format first, which means deciding on sound quality (anything from telephone and AM radio to FM radio and MP3). One hour of MP3-quality sound takes 44 minutes to download via a 56k modem, five minutes via broadband.
So if you want all 23 hours of Moby Dick in high-quality sound, you'll need broadband. Actually, telephone quality isn't as bad as you might think (you can test it on the site). Books you buy remain in your library, so if there's a problem, you can download them again.
PC users need the company's Audible Manager program (part of its copy protection strategy and free to download from the site) to transfer books to a player. For Mac users, Audible Manager is now part of iTunes 3. Some of the titles on Audible can be burned on to CD: it's clearly marked on the relevant pages.
There are a few gripes online about Audible's copy protection software and the problems it causes. And with only 6,000 books available, you may not find exactly what you want. Also, because of the problems over international audio rights, some books are only available to US consumers. In contrast, all the magazines and newspapers are available worldwide.
Overall, Audible is way ahead of the competition, most of which is still just dabbling with the format. For example, Time Warner sells 16 titles (James Patterson thrillers, financial advice, the Dalai Lama's autobiography) direct to readers, in the Windows Media Audio format. Pricing is reasonably competitive - if you're into bestsellers, it could be worth a look. A slightly larger selection is available at PayPerListen.com, the digital audio books section of Audiobooks.com. The shopping process is similar to Audible. You can choose to download your books an hour at a time, or all at once. PayPerListen uses its own copy protection software, which doesn't work with all players - but the site has clear information on all this.
If you're really out to save money, try the British-based AudioBooksForFree.com. Their rough and ready site offers MP3 versions of out-of-copyright classics (Arthur Conan Doyle, Joseph Conrad, even a bit of Nietzsche), all free once you sign up. Sound quality isn't great - if you pay, you can get something better. But the site has some classic children's fiction (Alice in Wonderland, Oscar Wilde's fairy stories and E Nesbitt's novels). It's a good place to try out the format and see if you like it. If you don't, the net can help there, too. Try Talking Books, a specialist UK online shop: it has a great selection of audio books on old-style tape and CD.
Links
Audible
www.audible.com
PayPerListen
www.payperlisten.com
Time Warner Digital Audio Books
www.mytimewarneraudio.com
Audio books free
www.audiobooksforfree.com
Richmond-Upon-Thames libraries: eBooks
www.richmond.gov.uk/depts/opps/eal/leisure/libraries/pn/ebooks/eaudio/default.htm
