A Summary of Audible.com
Audible.com is a major player in the audio book download market. They have the largest selection of digital audio books available with now over 60,000 downloadable titles. This brief summary should help you decide if their service fits your listening habits.
Audible.com was launched in 1997 and is now the market leader in digital downloadable audio books. Compared to traditional tape and CD audio books, audible audio books are available for instant digital download. Downloaded audio books can be copied to an audio device like iPod and over 500 other devices, or they can be listened on the computer.
Their site offers an extensive range of digital audio books and boats over 60,000 titles ready for download. Contemporary bestsellers as well as classics are available and new titles are added regularly.
Digital delivery is the other way to deliver audible audio books. The size of digital downloads is one of audible’s major advantageous. A large amount of data can be stored using their format. This has resulted in a greater number of unabridged audio books being recorded and sold. Audio books that are held on numerous cassettes can now only take up a fraction of the space on modern digital audio devices.
Audible audio books file is similar to mp3. Audible explains their format here:
“Audible created and employs a proprietary technology solution for distributing copyright-secure audio files that can be downloaded or streamed from audible.com. Audible's secure distribution system and encryption prevents a customer from passing along duplicate digital audio files to another listener”. Please visit the Audible.com FAQ pages to know more.
Free software needs to be installed on your personal computer in order to listen to an audible file. Audible should be compatible with the device on which the file is to be played. Their audio books are compatible with over 500 different devices. Please see Audible compatible devices.
Downloading time of a file varies on the size and the speed of internet connection. A fast broadband connection can download an audio file at the rate of approximately one hour of audio every 5 minutes. It would take about 35 minutes for a 7 hour audio book to download. The same procedure would take longer for dial-up connections or slow broadband connections.
There are two ways to buy audio books through Audible…
One off Purchase: Their secure shopping facility is the place to easily purchase a single audio book. Making books available for download instead of having to reproduce the audio to CDs or cassettes makes digital downloads cheaper to buy.
Subscriptions: Signing up for a subscription where a set fee per month is paid. You will be awarded a number of audio book credits which allow you to use those credits to purchase the audio book of your choice. This method can save you even more, especially if purchase audio books regularly.
A few things to remember:
1. You should be comfortable with buying and downloading files from the Internet before buying from Audible or any online retailer. (Sure you are!)
2. You need a device that is compatible with their format.
3. The files are encrypted and therefore subject to some restrictions when it comes to copying and distribution.
4. You will struggle to find a service that can equal audible.com.