Audible Books

By JOSHUA QUITTNER

I'd like to apologize to the riders last week on the Long Island Rail Road's 6:24 to Huntington. That train is always hellishly hot, overcrowded and airless as the grave. So there's nothing more disturbing than being trapped with some maniac in headphones who periodically erupts in cackling laughter. But I couldn't help myself: you try keeping quiet while listening to Al Franken reading from his book Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot. Especially the introduction, in which Franken describes ex-U.N. Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick as "my former lover."

I was sampling the 1996 book not on an audiocassette but on something more convenient and ultimately less expensive: a digital, pocket-size device made by Audible, of Wayne, N.J. The company has been quietly cornering the market for audio books and other spoken media delivered online.

Audible has a proprietary formula for compressing sound into a digital form that can move from its website over phone lines into your modem and computer. It takes only eight minutes for a 56K modem to download an hour of audio. To do this, you'll need Audible's software, which comes with a nifty 3.5-oz. rechargeable MobilePlayer ($199) that holds two hours' worth of stuff. A newer model that holds 7 1/2 hrs. and costs $299 is supposed to ship next week.

Long term, Audible doesn't want to stay in the hardware business: its money will come from programming. To that end, the company has been partnering with book publishers, newspapers, magazines and broadcasters to put their narrated words online at www.audible.com There you can buy the MobilePlayer and shop for programming, including current best sellers that you can download to your PC, then listen to or transfer to the portable device. (Mac-compatible software is expected by year's end.)

Here's the part I like best: because the programming exists only as bits, with no shipping or packaging required, the pricing is sweet. The Franken book on cassette, for instance, costs $12.57 plus shipping at Amazon.com But Audible's version costs only $6.95. Better still, you can buy a la carte stuff, such as Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon monologues for 75[cents] each. The opportunity to cherry-pick content and exchange small sums of money online will become more and more attractive, to both consumers and authors. (I would happily read my columns to you if I got, say, a dime a download.)

Starting in March, Microsoft will bundle the Audible software into Windows CE for any palm-size device that comes with a headphone jack. People who use personal digital assistants such as the Philips Nino will be able to buy and play programming without purchasing the Audible player. And last week Audible began offering free samples of its content in the popular MP3 format at www.audible3.com Anyone--even Mac users!--can listen in after downloading a free MP3 player, like the ones at www.mp3.com Audible plans to offer serial books in this format. Still, you might want to buy the Audible mobile device for a cool feature that allows you to play it through your car radio.

The biggest problem I've had with Audible is with its sound quality, which reminds me of the worn-out sound tracks in drug-education films in grade school. Also, I couldn't make the sound loud enough to be heard over the roar of my ghastly train, which makes me think it wouldn't work well on ghastly airplanes either. Audible's software interface, which allows you to select programs, could use simplification. On my maiden voyage, I thought I had set up three Keillor monologues, a chunk of Franken and some Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But for reasons that are still unclear to me, though the program manager said I had downloaded 20 min. of Wobegon, all I got was the last few minutes of it. Oh, well--at least the Franken survived.

For more on audio books, see our website at timedigital.com Tell Quittner what columns he should read at jquit@well.com