Audible.com

[ddubois]

Anyone used this?

I spend at least an hour every day in my car commuting. I kind of feel like it's a waste of time. I usually listen to an advice call-in show in the mornings, which might be OK if literally 40% of the air time wasn't commercials. Then I listen to music in the evenings, which might be OK if the radio wasn't god-awful repetitive, and I had purchased a new CD within the last five years.

I got the idea that perhaps listening to books on CD might be a more productive use of my time. I always want to read more, and I buy far more books than I actually get around to reading (I'm always more compelled to do something else, usually on the computer or with the family). But in my car, I'm something of a captive audience. Do you all have any opinions on hearing a book versus reading it?

Before I bought any audio book CDs however, I saw amazon's links to audible.com on some products, and wonder if this isn't even better than my idea. My concern is selection I suppose: I have no interest in fiction. And I doubt they have much in the way of programming books or 2+2 books. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] Once I get through a certain number of widely lauded self-improvement-style books, I could be out of material and back to where I am now.

Thoughts?

[BusterFlush]

I am a monthly subscriber to Audible.com and like the service. I have a treo 650 Palm phone and download the books to it. This was I can listen to them anywhere.
So far I have not had any download or other problems with Audible. The selection is geared towards new releases and does have a good selection of non-fiction. Besides James McManus's book, there are no poker books as of last time I checked last month.

[ddubois]

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I am a monthly subscriber to Audible.com and like the service.

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So you are an "AudibleListener"? The specifics of their subscriber service seem very unclear to me after perusing their website. How much do you save versus being a traditional pay-per-product user? How much content are you allowed to get? What if you want more content than comes with your subscription? Can you transfer the content between devices at will, or are their copy-protection barriers that inconvience you from doing so?

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I have a treo 650 Palm phone and download the books to it. This was I can listen to them anywhere.

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It's a "bad idea" to use headphones while driving isn't it? My car doesn't have any interface for external devices to deliver audio through the car speakers, so either I'd need to an MP3 player with an external speaker, burn my own audio CDs, use one of those headphone-to-tape convertors , or modify/install something in my car stereo. I'm not sure which I'll do yet. The fact that they give you an MP3 player free for signing up leans me in the cassette-adapter direction.

[BusterFlush]

I use one ear piece or the speaker from my phone while driving.
The subscriber service is $14.95 per month and allows for one book per month and two periodicals. Most books are much greater than this individually. You may purchase additional books at the normal rate. One per month seems to work fine especially an unabridged version.
I download the books to a laptop and then to my phone. I have every book I have downloaded still saved. You own them for your own personal use and are safe as long as you do not reproduce and market them. There are no barrier situations when transfering between devices.