An Affordable Outlet for Audio Books: Audible!
Written: Jul 11 '05
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With my new job comes a fairly long commute, plus occasional road trips to other cities in order to do work. So, I figured that the best solution to dealing with all of this time in the car would be to join Audible so I could download and listen to books during my drives.
About Audible
Audible, located at www.audible.com started up in November of 1997. For a monthly charge or a per item fee, Audible offers audio books, audio magazine and newspaper subscriptions, and radio show subscriptions. Additionally, Audible offers free audio downloads as well, of historic or political importance, sort of a PBS-like roundup of discussions. Recently Audible has offered free downloads of Presidential debates, 9/11 commission interviews and political speeches.
In addition to downloading content on an item by item basis, Audible now offers Podcast subscriptions through its service. "Podcasting" is an on-demand audio program download service first made popular with Apple's iPod. Basically when you subscribe to a Podcast, you dock or hook up your MP3 player daily and the content is automatically pushed to your player, so you can listen to radio shows and audio content when you choose to.
Plans and Services
Audible BasicListener™ Plan: This plan allows you to choose one audio book and one audio magazine, newspaper or radio program each month for $14.95 a month.
Audible PremiumListener™ Plan: This plan allows you to choose two audio books each month for $21.95 per month.
You can also opt to purchase books direct from Audible on a per book basis. Per book costs run anywhere from $4 or $5 to $40 with most appearing in the $20-$30 range.
Since there were no magazine, newspaper or radio subscriptions that I was interested in, I chose the PremiumListener™ Plan from Audible.
Using the Service
To utilize Audible's service you must download the Audible Manager. This is a piece of software that resides on your computer, interacting with the Audible server. Once you have signed up and downloaded the download manager, when you choose to download an available program, the Audible Manager starts up and initializes the download to your computer.
Your file will not download in an MP3 or other standard file-format. For security and license control purposes, Audible downloads are in a proprietary format, so if you have an older MP3 player, you may not be able to listen to Audible content on your device. You can go to Audible and verify whether or not your MP3 player is compatible with the Audible listening format.
If you don't have a compatible MP3 player, Audible offers a free player (a very inexpensive one at that) or a discounted (more expensive) player if you purchase a year's subscription. I've read very angry negative reviews at Epinions from users who bit at this offer, and when they weren't happy with the service were furious that they were stuck for a year. Audible makes the commitment requirement very clear, so my advice is don't take the offer unless you are sure you want a year's worth of the service.
I wasn't sure, so I decided to purchase my own Creative MuVo MP3 player (one of the least expensive compatible MP3 players) off eBay for about $65. This saved me from being locked into a year long service commitment which in the long run, has saved me money.
To download content you navigate to the book or audio you want, and add it to your cart. Each month you get credits to spend, so you can use up to two credits for items in your card. Free content lists at "$0" in your cart. You check out and the content is moved into your online audio library.
Once the Audible Manager is installed and recognizes your audio device, you simply have to click on "Get it Now" in your Audible Library online and your content will be downloaded to your computer and copied to your device seamlessly.
Alternatively, if you want to listen to Audible content and you don't have a compatible MP3 player of any sort, or the means to get one, you can burn Audible books to CD. This is tiresome, however, and until I got my MP3 player in the mail I found myself burning dozens of CD's to listen to just a couple of books.
Once the Audible content is on your player it stays there until you choose to delete it. It's also still in the Audible Manager, so you can re-copy it to your device if necessary. The books appear just like MP3 tracks on your audio player, so listening to them is as easy as listening to any other track.
You can also queue up the books that you want to read. For instance, with the PremiumListener™ Audible plan, I only received two book credits per month. I added books to my Wish List so I could remember them for the next month when I got two more available book credits. Audible also offers another service called "My Next Listen". You can queue up books in this particular area in order that you want to receive them. When your next month begins and you get more credits, Audible automatically "purchases" the next one or two books on your behalf (depending upon your subscription) and deposits them in your library, available for download.
Quality and Selection
I have downloaded and listened to six different audio books from Audible, as well as several programs from the free content selection. The only indication that the book or content is from Audible is a fellow at the beginning informing the listener that they're listening to Audible, and a similar note at the end of the book or program. You can download content in one of four formats, depending upon your audio listening device and preference. Audio ranks and labels their formats as:
1: (For PC Only): Telephone-like sound quality, 2 MB for 1 hour of audio
2: AM Radio sound quality, 3.7 MB for 1 hour of audio
3. FM Radio sound quality, 7.2 MB for 1 hour of audio
4: MP3 sound quality: 14.4 MB for 1 hour of audio
I always download in format 3 and I've never had any issue whatsoever with the sound quality of the audio content I've gotten from Audible.
The selection at Audible is impressive as well. They offer all of the big selling books that I was looking for, and thanks to their various recommendations lists, I also discovered a few other books that I found entertaining. Audible has a rating system similar to Amazon.com's where customers can rate an audio book after they've listened to it. This feature very helpfully steers customers clear of duds, or at least gives you an idea of what to expect from a book before you buy it.
You can browse the selection at Audible without signing up for the service, so if you're looking for a specific book just click on the "Browse Audio" tab at the Audible website and you can find if it's at Audible before you buy or sign up.
Customer Service and Cancellation
It's a testament to the service that in three months I've never had to contact them once. Audible offers a variety of customer service options to assist customers. Clicking on the help button at the top of the website takes you to a variety of frequently asked questions, all of which helped me enough so that I didn't need to contact customer service directly by e-mail or phone.
If you do need to talk to a customer service representative, Audible provides a toll-free phone number on their "Contact Us" page which is linked at the bottom from Audibles pages. They also have an e-mail form you can fill out for questions.
I recently canceled my Audible service, not because it wasn't great, it is. But because I'm currently so backlogged on audio books that I need a month or two to get through them before joining up again. I was surprised at how easy Audible's cancellation process is. Canceling your account from your main account page is simple, although Audible provides many questions, "outs" and incentives for you to not completely cancel along the way. Audible will allow you to suspend your subscription for up to three months, and they'll re-instate it automatically for you. I did not choose this option as, knowing me, I would forget about it completely. Instead I chose to cancel, and marked in their survey that I was "Likely" to re-subscribe, which I will be. Note that by choosing to buy my Creative MuVo on my own, I wasn't locked in to twelve months of service. Unless you know that you'll find the service useful for twelve months, I wouldn't recommend getting locked into a minimum usage period either.
Summary
Audible has been a life saver for me on my road trips, enabling me to listen to books I might not otherwise have the time to read. I found their site easy to navigate, their customer assistance tools helpful, and their selection of books broad. Even though I've cancelled my Audible service, I will be re-subscribing as soon as I dig through my current stack of acquired audio books. I highly recommend Audible to anyone who spends a lot of time in transit and wants a supply of audio books and other content.
Pros: Great books, large selection, regular readership program, highly portable audiobook solution.
Cons: Proprietary audio format only works on certain players, service is somewhat pricey.
Audible, Inc.
65 Willowbrook Boulevard
Wayne, NJ 07470
Toll Free Customer Service: 888-283-5051 (M-F 9AM-9PM, Sat 10AM-6PM EST)
http://www.audible.com
Recommended:
Yes
What product did you purchase or try to purchase? Multiple books and other audio content.
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mrs-j
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Reviews written: 319
Trusted by: 120 members
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"Man was made for something better than disturbing dirt." - Oscar Wilde
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