This has implications as far as access to quality digital
books for the disabled...
Basics: Reading (Sort of) and Driving at the Same Time
January 7, 2004
By LISA NAPOLI
FACING a two-day car trip solo from Cleburne, Tex., to Los
Angeles, Rex McGee decided he needed a soundtrack other
than music. Before he embarked on the 1,500-mile drive in
September, he used his computer to download four audiobooks
and burn them to CD's - his aural driving companions.
"It's a perfect way to pass the time," said Mr. McGee, a
screenwriter. "I need to get involved in a story."
Through the long stretches of desert in New Mexico and
Arizona, Mr. McGee listened to an eclectic mix: "Underboss:
Sammy The Bull Gravano's Story of Life in the Mafia" by
Peter Maas; "My Anecdotal Life" by the
actor-writer-producer Carl Reiner; "The DaVinci Code" by
Dan Brown; and "Winesburg, Ohio," the 1919 Sherwood
Anderson classic, which in book form had been on his shelf
unread for years.
The desire to multitask during a road trip or a daily
commute is one reason for the growing popularity of
audiobooks. Another factor is technology. With a digital
audio player, a user can now download titles - and often
for less than it would be to buy a book, audiocassette or
CD.
An aural rendition of "Anna Karenina" ordered from
www.blackstoneaudio.com, for instance, would cost $162.90
and require juggling 24 tapes.
For $23.95 you can download the tale, unabridged and
clutterless, in about 30 minutes if you have a high-speed
Internet connection.
As digital audio players drop in price and become capable
of holding more data, downloadable spoken-word programming
is becoming easier to manage and more widely available.
There is a catch, of course. Publishers have yet to settle
on how authors should be compensated for audio versions of
their works, and the need to protect against copyright
violations means that secure technology must be used to
download audiobooks. As a result, there are only a few
places on the Web where they can be found. (There are many
outlets, however, from which to purchase or rent audiobooks
on CD's or cassettes.) The closest thing to a well-stocked,
easy-to-navigate chain bookstore is Audible.com, which
carries 18,000 works.
"They have the best selection, the most titles, the most
current things," said Robin Whitten, editor and founder of
AudioFile magazine, a bimonthly publication that reviews
audiobooks. "They often get a new program the day the book
goes on sale."
At Audible, a user can not only acquire classics but the
latest best sellers, too, from the various John Grisham and
Danielle Steele offerings to Madonna's foray into
children's books (read by the star herself), plus enough
self-help, meditation and business titles to make an
autodidact both rich and satisfied.
And more than just books are available. Public radio
programs like "Car Talk," "This American Life" and "All
Things Considered" are available, as are magazines and
newspapers like Scientific American, The Wall Street
Journal and The New York Times, delivered in digest form.
Beyond abundance of offerings, another difference between
Audible and its competitors is ease of use. Gaining access
to a file you have purchased requires only a one-time
download of a software program called Audible Manager, and
then a simple click on your computer screen to transfer the
file to your computer's hard drive. Then you may (with some
exceptions) do with it what you will: listen to it on your
desktop, burn it onto a CD or transfer it to a portable
device.
The one limitation in this case may be the size of your
portable player's hard drive. If it is not large enough,
you might have to add chapters as you are ready for them.
Audible throws in a player called the Otis with a
subscription to its service ($14.95 a month for one
audiobook and one periodical or radio program; $19.95 a
month for two audiobook titles); the player holds 17 hours
of programming. The unabridged "Anna Karenina'' is 34.5
hours. (Most titles, of course, are far shorter, even when
unabridged.)
With an iPod, the process is even simpler, because
Audible.com recently struck a deal under which the Apple
iTunes store has begun to feature Audible titles
prominently amid the music for sale. An iPod is ideal for
memory-heavy audiobooks. A 40-gigabyte iPod can hold more
than 4,800 hours of spoken-word titles, and an audiobook
purchased from Audible steers itself directly to the iTunes
file on your computer.
It is also possible to use a wide range of hand-held
organizers for audiobook playback. And there are several
gadgets that allow you to easily play your digital
audiobooks in the car; information about these and other
compatible MP3 players is available on the Audible.com
site.
The simplicity and abundance of Audible offerings are more
apparent when you take a look at www.payperlisten.com, the
digital download arm of Audiobooks.com, which sells new and
used titles in taped form. At PayPerListen, the emphasis is
on the classics, said Jimmy Belson, managing director,
adding that there are more than 300 titles available at the
site.
The site has the feel of a smaller operation. After placing
an order, you must wait several hours to have your credit
card processed and to receive an e-mail confirmation; only
then are you able to download your purchase. Titles are
downloaded chapter by chapter, making for clumsier file
management.
The same is true at www.audiobooksforfree .com, which, in
addition to requiring a piecemeal download, offers what the
site's proprietors call "bearable" quality audio. For a $6
fee, you can upgrade the audio quality, and for an annual
membership, you can get access to more than 326 titles,
which run mainly toward classics and thrillers.
Books are not the only spoken-word material that is
available for downloading from the Web. At
www.radioclassics.com, thousands of hours of old-time radio
shows are available, including favorites like "Fibber McGee
and Molly," "Our Miss Brooks" and "Dragnet." In addition to
free streams of shows offered each week in conjunction with
RadioClassics' syndicated show, "When Radio Was," the site
offers a monthly subscription for $19.95 that allows you to
download 20 hours of content. Subscribers are permitted to
listen to the shows on two different computers and have the
right to burn them onto CD's for portable listening.
RadioClassics recently introduced a $4.95-a-month program
that allows you to stream the shows on your PC; about 4,000
of the 50,000 hours the site has to offer are available for
streaming, said Barry O'Hagan, the site's streaming and
downloadable content manager. Mac users may find this
service difficult to use, and Mr. O'Hagan hedged about
plans to make it more Mac friendly.
Once you are set up to download listening material, you may
be overwhelmed by the sheer volume that can be had at the
flick of a cursor. A worthy guide is AudioFile (www
.audiofilemagazine.com), which reviews audiobooks produced
for any medium, with an ear for production values. In
keeping with the digital spirit, Ms. Whitten recently
introduced a plan that allows users to subscribe to an
online version of the magazine, complete with recommended
titles and discounts, one issue at a time for $2.95 a
month.
Ms. Whitten, who has been following the industry for more
than 10 years, said she found the growing number of
audiobooks in digital format encouraging, but that it would
be some time before the selection was as broad as that on
CD's and cassettes. "There are still a lot of audiobooks
that are not available, and it will take a while," she
said. "The publishers are trying to figure out what users
want and how it will work best for them."
For Mr. McGee, hearing Carl Reiner read his autobiography
gave the book a different dimension - and lent color to a
long and tedious drive. When he reached Los Angeles, he
wrote Mr. Reiner a letter. "I told him, 'You kept me
laughing through New Mexico and Arizona,' " he said. The
actor surprised him by calling to thank him for the note.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/07/technology/circuits/08basi.html?ex=1074585
026&ei=1&en=5d056dc42c1dfaed
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