grep Chelo

This turned out to be longer than planned. So, here’s the short version. Me want audiobooks. Me found audiobooks. You find audiobooks too. You go Audible.com. You go Podiobooks.com too. So that was the abridged version, but not reading the unabridged is cheating! To find my views on this issue, read the whole thing

Reading is one of the things I enjoy doing most in my spare time. It usually trumps gaming, almost always wins over TV shows and movies, and it would’ve certainly been a better alternative to some of the matches in the World Cup this week (I’m looking at you, England vs Algeria.)

The one problem with books is that they require not just your undivided attention; they practically demand that you lock yourself in a room, turn off all communication devices, and settle yourself in a comfortable position. Even holding a beer becomes challenging, whether you’re dealing with a physical book or the e-reader of your choice. Many times I’ve felt like just laying down and reading for a couple hours, only to be frustrated by the sight of dirty dishes in the sink or a rumbling in my stomach. You can only ignore those for so long; eventually you have to get around to it, and it means solving your problems first (exposing yourself to further distractions), or a favorite classic of mine: “I’ll just read a chapter, then do the dishes.” This NEVER happens, so if it needs to be done, it needs to be done.

I’d never really considered audiobooks for a couple reasons. They’re way more expensive than a normal book, three to four times more money. That can amount to a lot of beers. Also, I was rarely put in situations where I was doing some mindless task that would allow my mind to freely lose itself in the narrative. Maybe driving, but that requires a lot of concentration, or you may forget to flip off the bastard who just cut you off. But most importantly, I felt like I was cheating. Taking the easy way out. Maybe like saying “Eyes? I don’t need no stinkin’ eyes! Reading is for literate losers!”. Also, it used to be that most audiobooks were abridged versions, and that really is cheating; it’s the equivalent of showing up to two classes in college and claiming you got a degree. A book has already gone through an editing process to take out the “unnecessary” stuff, so any further abbreviation is simply mutilation.

But things change, and now I’m find myself doing more stuff that would be suitable for listening to an audiobook. Twice a day I take my dog for a walk, and she loves going outside so much that I usually spend 20 to 40 minutes trying to stop her from hunting bunnies or fighting snakes. Yes, you can see those on a daily basis at my current apartment complex. I’m also taking more time to cook, and even though I have no intention of not concentrating on the knife, a lot of the times it comes down to staring at a pot or pan for a couple minutes, then doing something, then back to staring. So this settings seem perfect for experimenting with audiobooks.

So, I looked around, and found Audible.com. This site has a huge catalog of audiobooks, done by professionals, where you can find most popular best sellers and latest releases, with unabridged versions, so it looks good so far. It’s a subscription based service, so you pay $7.50 the first 3 months, then $15 afterwards. You get 1 credit a month that can be exchanged for any book in their catalog. It’s a little more than I wanted to pay for this experiment, but I figured at least I’d try. And one book a month doesn’t sound like much, but they do have nice discounts for almost every book, so being a member does have its perks. I’m still not convinced by this, but like I said, looks to be the only way to get best-sellers read to you by a professional, which beats the heck out of trying to use a text-to-speech feature on any e-reader. I want audiobooks to sound like they sound when I’m reading, not like when I call customer service.

Then I found a different business model. I was listening to Skepticality, one of my favorite podcasts, and Scott Sigler was one of their guests. Turns out he creates audiobooks of his own writings, which have been best-sellers, and puts them up for free under Creative Commons for everyone to enjoy. I know Scott is probably in the minority who do this kind of thing, most people don’t give stuff away for free, but I’m glad he is.

Not satisfied with just getting one of his books, I poked around a little more, and I found Podiobooks. This is a site that publishes audiobooks for free, so that struggling indie writers can make their works known. They work on donations, 75% goes to the author, the rest is used to cover the costs of the site. I really, truly, love this business model, and will probably use it more than Audible.

I’m not going to pick one site over the other, because It think they complement each other pretty well. I downloaded The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson from Audible, and Nocturnal by Scott Sigler from Podiobooks, so we’ll see how this plays out. I’m pretty excited about this experiment