Simply Audiobooks Inc.

People keep talking about how you should avoid same-ness if you want to succeed. Do interesting, different things. We’ve tried that at Simply Audiobooks with hidden funny pages on our site, a haiku version of our learn more page, and even a find-the-employee-picture-on-the-site bingo game.

Sadly, I can’t offer links to the latter two because you know what? Sometimes quirky is just quirky. Different doesn’t mean better. And we killed those pages on our site because no-one either noticed or commented. Not that we’re going to stop trying, but sometimes I think we should just deliver the book or pricing information people are looking for, instead of trying to be different. Or… maybe we’re just not funny.

Before the advent of television and spoonfed images, radio drama was king.

During the Depression, the radio was a unifying force, providing inexpensive entertainment for the masses. Record numbers listened as President Roosevelt, star of regular ‘Fireside Chats,’ rallied a troubled nation with the introduction of his ‘New Deal.’ By the end of the 1940′s, revenue from radio advertising reached a peak of $203 Million.

And then suddenly things changed. 1939 saw the debut of the TV at the World’s Fair in New York City. By April 1950, there were over 4 million in American households; this number almost doubled by October. By 1953, 50% of Americans (over 25 million homes) had their own television set. The world seemed enthralled by this dynamic new medium, and radio found itself relegated to a roaming format of convenience, condensed into car dashboards and shrunk into portable sets.

Although nostalgia has always kept an interest alive, the classic radio drama seemed to die a sad, quiet death. It looked like the popularity of this once dominant medium was dead and gone forever…until the appearance of the cassette tape and the sudden proliferation of recorded versions of books and plays presented in the classic audio format.

I just polished off How to Make Friends and Influence People, a title I downloaded more than 3 months ago, on the day we launched the download service. Obviously I was interested in listening to it, at least in an academic way (figuring a book that’s been around for 70 years must have traction).

The skinny on this self-help classic: Are all self help audio books so self-evident? Andrew MacMillan keeps his narration well-paced, if a little old-fashioned, which suits the down home advice of the text. At 8 1/2 hours (Unabridged), the title runs a bit long–the second half feels padded with sales pitches for their personal development programs (which cost considerably more than the audio book). Overall production values are high, and it’s a useful reminder of the basics of good behaviour–but be ready to skip ahead when tracks get a little self-indulgent.

Suggestions like avoiding criticism and giving a person a reputation to live up to are useful reminders of basic principles (the one about avoiding criticism at all costs really resonated for me– which I’m not too proud of), but really these are things we should have learned in grade school. Isn’t this largely the curriculum for your average kindergarten class? Learning to cooperate, garner consensus and build goodwill are all basic building blocks of dealing with other people.

By about halfway through the book, the pointed reminders of what works to “win friends and influence people” start to wear a little thin. The real-life examples from famous figures like Abraham Lincoln and Charles Schwab (yes, there was a Charles Schwab, once) are replaced more often with “Joseph H., who took our course in San Diego, California” or “Suzanne Y., who teaches our program in Boston, Massachusetts” — significantly less compelling figures, though I’m sure they were super-jazzed when he successfully renegotiated his lease and she convinced her husband to go to the Grand Canyon for their annual holiday.

Seriously, is this what self-help is all about? Is it remedial lessons on how to play nice? And if so, why aren’t people getting more civil as self-help audio books rocket to the top of best-seller lists?

I read in Cool News today that Dan Brown, the author of Da Vinci Code, has invented a tool called the bionic wrench. Wow I thought, what talent! Not only an inventor of crackpot theories on Vatican conspiracies, but a candidate for American Inventor too. Except it’s not the same Dan Brown. The tunnel-vision perils of being in the book business I guess. When all you have is a nut, every discovery is a wrench…

Fresh research shows that most people who click on podcast links, including presumably our own audiobook podcasts, don’t actually listen to the darn things. Certainly they don’t listen to podcasts on their portable players. Maybe people click on podcast links because they think they’re supposed to? They are, after all, very cool. I love saying it. Podcast. Podcast. Podcast podcast podcast.

I’m happy to admit that I don’t listen to podcasts. I have an iPod, I know what a podcast is, and I know where to get them. I did download a video podcast a while ago of Ask a Ninja, which I thought was hilarious, but then I never downloaded another one. Not least of why because I don’t trust my iTunes software to manage my music library, so I turned off the whole update automatically thing. I haven’t noticed my life deteriorating, not even relative to my podcast-saying-but-not-doing friends. I’m just glad I’m not the only one clicking on podcast links because I think they’re cool. Wait, here comes a co-staffer, I have to find some podcast links and click on them.

I wonder who’ll win? The French parliament is cracking down on crabby iPod (et al) DRM. The legislation would basically work 2 ways: first, digital audio providers would have to use open source files that could be played anywhere on anything; second, people could legally crack existing DRM without any threat of legal ramifications.

Unfortunately, analysts seem to be more on the side of “Apple would just shut down iTunes in France rather than bend on DRM” than “domino effect will gather momentum so fast that Apple won’t know what hit ‘em.” For us, who offer .WMA audio books for download, this is mixed news.

Kids making their own audiobooks. This is a *great* idea. In Union City, CA, there’s an elementary school where teachers and students are using recently procured computers to produce CD companions to library books. The CDs are then included with the library books whenever they’re loaned.

The program is now running in classrooms as young as kindergarten-level. With 40 kids (up to 5th grade) working on recording the books, 200 have so far been given the audio treatment.

I often wonder whether people are basically good, or basically evil. It would appear that it’s more interesting to think about whether they’re basically intelligent, or basically stupid.

Scott Adams’ (author of the Dilbert audio books) writes a blog about mob rule and the definition of ‘right’ being determined by the majority, defined as 67%-ish of the public. If you assume people are basically stupid and we elect politicians to protect us from ourselves, then Adams is probably wrong, and you watch too much television.

If you think politicians decide policy independently of what is considered ‘right’ by the 2/3 majority, then Adams is probably wrong, and you don’t watch enough television (C-span).

But if you think that in general, government policy follows popular opinion of what is right (2/3 because we have to filter out hypocrites)… then Adams is right. And Adams IS right. People are basically intelligent. Especially people who “read” audiobooks, even if they call it listening. Sorry, couldn’t resist.

Researching our most recent press release, I got a pretty interesting mini-education in Horticulture Therapy and healing gardens. It turns out that planting tulips does, indeed, make you smarter. Who knew?

The planning stages challenge your creativity and imagination, as you evaluate available space to determine what you want, and where you want it. Nurturing your garden’s growth demands dedication, patience and compromise. There’s little or no negotiation with nature, at least on this small scale. The physical work is a great anti-stress workout, developing core strength, balance, and even some cardio fitness.

As the plants develop and bloom, your outdoor (or indoor) space can become a real sanctuary… if you want to know more, visit the Simply Audiobooks’ Gardening Guide. You’ll find the basics about gardening as a mind+body workout, and check out the very bottom of the page for links to more resources.

Dan Brown in court!
Two of the authors of The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail are suing him, saying that The Da Vinci Code was unwritable without a heavy reliance on their book– which is a “non-fiction” work from the early 1980s.
Brown insists he hadn’t read the 1982 work when he wrote the novel’s synopsis in 1991, laying out the key themes and plot points. BUT…All of Brown’s significant research sources based their research on The Holy Blood…. Since all research that “proves” that Mary Magdalene and Jesus were married, and the Holy Grail is a blood line, not a chalice, is based on that original work by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh (the guys who are suing Dan Brown), if Brown didn’t read it before proposing the book, he was guilty at the very least of poor research.
And it’s not just the Holy Grail bloodline concept that’s reused in TDVC… there’s also the idea of a secret society sworn to protect that bloodline, the coded messages in art and the Catholic Church trying to cover it all up. The skeleton of the story is almost identical to the first section of The Holy Blood… Though Brown fictionalized his version, it’s still very close to the same story.
Granted, Brown’s telling is a lot more entertaining and much more readable, it’s still fundamentally a dramatic re-telling of The Holy Blood… One of the most significant characters is even named after the two authors (Leigh Teabing– “Teabing” is an anagram of Baignet).