Audiobooks And Technology Converge... Finally!

Okay, raise your hand if you remember eight-track tapes (for those of you under 40, go ask your parents about them). How about LPs? Anyone? You know, those big black CDs? What, you may ask, does any of this have to do with the price of audiobooks in China? Actually, quite a bit!

It's about technology with regards to audio media. Audio media has gone through some major changes over the last 15 years. Everybody knows how great CDs are -- fabulous sound quality, minimal storage space, long lasting (if you take even reasonable care of them).

But when it comes to audiobooks, many people actually prefer to take a technological step backwards to the technology that ruled the world after eight-tracks and LPs -- audio cassettes! (C'mon, I KNOW you remember those :-)

I'm not sure anyone ever tried an audiobook on eight-track tape, and there may have been a few on LP, but they were certainly not a raging success. But when cassettes came into the picture, audio "books on tape" really started to take off. And that's been the prevailing format for audio books until very recently.

Now you can find many more audiobook titles coming out in today's media format champion: CDs. But there are a lot of people who still prefer good old audio cassettes to CDs. This is especially true when we're talking about listening to audiobooks. I happen to be one of those people. Let me explain why.

First of all, audiobooks in CD format can't hold any more than 75 minutes of content. On the other hand, cassettes can hold 90 minutes or more of narration. With cassettes, you're probably going to need two or three to hold a good sized audiobook. But you probably need many more CDs to hold that same audiobook.

Another problem with audiobooks on CD is that they tend to be more expensive than the same audiobooks on cassette. For example, an unabridged version of "Harry Potter and The Goblet Of Fire" on cassettes is just $31.96 on the Barnes and noble web site. The same audiobook on the same web site in CD format is $55.96 -- almost twice the price of the cassette version! Yikes!

Here's the biggest problem I have with audiobooks on CDs. In most cases, when you turn off your CD player while listening to an audiobook, you're not going to be able to start it up from exactly where you left off. But with a good old fashioned cassette, you can do exactly that. If you're listening to a CD full of songs it's not a real big problem. But within audiobooks which can have much longer chapters, you really want to have more precise stopping and starting capability. Listening to audio books on CDs can be frustrating when you're driving if you have to restart the audiobook or try to locate exactly where you stopped every time you shut off the car. Sure, there are more advanced CD players in cars these days that do restart where you stopped when you turned off the car. But it's certainly not a universal feature. And oh, by the way, if you take your CD out of the CD player, you definitely can't just put it back in and start where you left off. With a cassette you can.

Since audiobooks are mostly just narration, most people who buy them don't see the point in paying extra for CDs when the audio quality of cassettes is pretty close to that of CDs especially when we're talking about largely narrative content.

Ah, but wait! What's that I see riding in from the horizon on a white horse? Yes, it's an MP3 player! The newest in the battle for media market dominance may be exactly what the audiobook world has been waiting for! Small size, big capacity, SUPERB quality. PERFECT for audiobooks! And the great news is, there are audiobook stores popping up that specialize in downloadable audiobooks, taking their cue from the resounding success of the downloadable music phenomenon.

Downloadable audiobooks and MP3 players are the perfect convergence of technology. And I think it's fair to say that we will see the number and quality of downloadable audiobooks increasing significantly as major publishers recognize the potential. Many already have. But many more will, and very soon.

One word of caution as you scramble out to get yourself an MP3 player (if you don't have one already). Make sure it either has a "bookmark" feature (which allows you to "mark" where you've left off so you can restart there), OR (like my iPod Nano), make sure if you shut it off, it picks up exactly where you left off when you start it again!

Then, find yourself a great audiobook (or a dozen), and take advantage of what used to be "dead time". Your world will be a much better place for it. And you can hold your head up because you're using the latest audio technology out there :-)