Simply Audiobooks Inc.

Heading off to Germany for a few days, I packed my trusty Treo MP3 player with a couple of audiobooks, and threw a Ken Follett paperback into my carry-on as well. I was going to get some good reading time in on the 8 hour flight.

My plan was to play some solitaire on my laptop to kill time until my battery ran out, then I could switch over to the MP3 player until THAT battery ran out, and if we hadn’t landed by then, I’d resort to the paperback. As it turned out, I still enjoyed the MP3 player (because I love audiobooks), but I discovered that these days the big planes have full wireless internet and an AC plug to boot. Ha. Little pun there.

Anyway, I ended up playing solitaire til I got bored, ignored a couple of IMs from my boss, and lost $20 playing poker online. Then I listened to audiobooks til we landed (thanks to the AC plug). I’m glad I don’t own shares in any lumber companies. No more paperbacks for me! But I AM going to go add some poker audiobooks to my bookshelf.

This sounds almost ludicrous, but check out this simple, no-frills MP3 player from a company called Evergreen. As is pointed out on that discussion, if you pair it with a 1 gig SD card from an online discount store, you have a 1 gig player for about $40. Not bad–especially if you’re like most people and don’t actually use too many of the features on their MP3 players.

Check it out! The Audies have been awarded. If you’re a member of SAB, checkout the Recommended Titles list that covers the 2006 Audies-winning audio books. If you are not a member [sniff], check out the list here.

A couple of interesting items I’ve run across. First one I mentioned earlier, that increasing breadth of content, much of it consumer generated (self published books for example), is all finding someone out there who wants it and is willing to pay – Chris Anderson’s “Long Tail”. The second is a recent post by Seth Godin about how you shouldn’t waste energy on a business/product that needs to be a hit to be successful. Because stardom in an age of increasing competition is harder to achieve.

Well, it was always hard to achieve. That’s why movie stars and cleanup hitters make $20 million a year. And why rock stars have women throwing themselves (and somtimes just their undergarments) at them. Hits, and being a prospective winner, are what drive much of the content creation out there. If there wasn’t a bestseller list and the prospect of a million dollar advance from Random House… someday…. then would all this great long tail content be getting generated? Or do people just create because they feel the need to create?

I think we need both the hits (to drive creation) and the long tail (to drive rewards for creation). It’s great. I predict that superstar salaries will start to go down as people with bank accounts realize celebrity just isn’t what it used to be. And talented people everywhere will get a little more celebrity. That has to be better for everybody. I’m getting sick of Tom Cruise anyway.

I’m in Washington DC as I write this, attending the BEA (Book Expo America), the largest book trade show/conference in the world. There is a day devoted to the audiobook industry, and some of the information was fascinating.

47% of all people who DON’T listen to audiobooks don’t listen because it never occured to them. It never occured to them! What are we all doing? Apparently we’re not telling enough people that audiobooks even exist, let alone how wonderful they are. Other tidbits – one panelist suggested CD would be a dead format within 2 years. Guess he doesn’t realize that nobody has direct download into their car (and aren’t about to have anytime soon).

To our own customers’ complete lack of surprise, everyone prefers unabridged audiobooks. General sentiment from publishers at the conference about their initial focus on abridgements… “ohmigosh, what were we thinking?” It’s a fun conference, not least of all because of the free stuff I’m getting. Score for the day was an advance copy of Chris Anderson’s book “The Long Tail”. Which is also coming in audiobook. His blog may whet your appetite. Read the book/blog and you’ll see why the concept is great for audiobook fans (increases selection).

So now it turns out that Apple actually sued Creative on the very same day that Creative sued Apple. Looks like Mr. Jobs might just have seen the Zen patent suit coming, and forearmed himself with some serious legal paperwork.

The Apple suit alleges that Creative is infringing on 4 iPod player patents. But what happens if they’re both right? And they need all 5 disputed technologies to make one whole player?

Take a stab at solving our DaVinci Code Quiz and see if you really know your history (both real and, ahem, Dan Brown-ified)… you might even win a free rental account for a friend!

Apple iPods might be stopped in their tracks thanks to a new Creative Technology lawsuit. Apparently the company, #2 in in MP3 player sales, filed a patent waaaaaay back in early 2001 to protect the Zen user interface– the way people view and control the files on their MP3 players. Creative’s patent was approved in 2005, and they’re now launching a suit against Apple, which uses a very similar interface.

The suit could be backed up by reports that Apple approached Creative almost a year before the iPod debuted, wanting to discuss a possible partnership or licensing Creative’s significant research into digital music players. Creative turned down both offers.

I saw today that we got a nice mention in the New York Times (online) travel section: New Audio Books Pack a Lot More Prose, and after reading the article found myself wondering why it is that new ways of listening to audiobooks are getting so much attention? Stories about audiobooks in general seem to focus on roadtrips and keeping the kids quiet in the back seat, rather than how generally cool they are. And as anyone reading this blog must already believe, Audiobooks are great, cool, awesome, neat… people should be writing about them all the time.

Well, I shouldn’t complain. Anything that gets people to listen to books is a good thing. Even though we only launched our own download service late in 2005, it’s already growing incredibly fast and surprisingly even to me, we find ourselves in the #2 spot in download members. Given that there are about a dozen companies out there offering audiobook downloads, per the Times article, that’s not bad.

I just have this skeptical reaction to ‘new technology’ stories touting the latest thing as if everyone has it or wants it. Sometimes it’s genuine (like with downloadable audiobooks), but often it’s just another idea that tech editors think is nifty, but the general public thinks is useless. I loved a study in Wired magazine from 2002… cellphones were just beginning to have the capability of doing commercial transactions. I’m doing this from memory, but the gist was:

5 years earlier, 95% of consumers surveyed said they’d use their cellphones for buying things. 3 years earlier, 50% said they’d use their cellphones for buying things. And that year (when it was finally possible), only 1% said they’d use their cellphones that way.

Never ask people for their opinions. That’s what I think.

Not necessarily in the sense of yelling at you while you do your 18 millionth crunch… but in the sense of keeping you at the gym for an extra 10 minutes, or keeping you sufficiently motivated that you maybe show up a little more often. I’ve been doing this with The Jane Austen Book Club, with mixed results. Maybe a language book would be a better bet?