Read me a story, Brad Pitt

Posted on Thursday, February 5th, 2009

It’s an older article, but Slate Magazine has a terrific piece about the importance of narration in the quality of audiobooks, from hard boiled fiction to urban sociology. Read Me a Story, Brad Pitt is subtitled “When audiobook casting goes terribly wrong,” and gives examples of the three most common — and easily avoided — […]

Making Nearly Perfect Audiobooks

Posted on Friday, January 30th, 2009

This is an overview of my current process for importing audiobooks. It’s a preview of my forthcoming (no, really, I promise) update to my instructions for importing audiobooks from CDs into iTunes. For OCD types, anal-retentives, and Harry Potter fans (hello brothers and sisters!), this preview may be sufficient for you to follow along on […]

Useful news feeds at Audible.com

Posted on Friday, December 19th, 2008

If you are looking to stay “on top” of all the latest audiobook releases, there are a variety of sources. Most of the different audiobook publishing houses and audiobook stores have email newsletters, or even paper catalogs they will send you in the mail. I’ve signed up for a lot of these, and find them […]

iPod-friendly downloads from libraries

Posted on Monday, December 15th, 2008

A couple of weeks ago, OverDrive, a technology vendor that provides many libraries with the software behind their download-to-loan content, released a new version of the OverDrive Media Console that is now Mac-compatible and iPod-friendly. It accomplishes this by providing loanable downloads in MP3 format, instead of a DRM-wrapped WMA (Windows Media) format.

It’s not clear […]

iTunes 8 is great for audiobook lovers

Posted on Thursday, September 11th, 2008

The number one question I receive from visitors to Aldo on Audiobooks is “How do I get my audiobooks to show up in the Audiobooks section of iTunes and my iPod/iPhone?” iTunes 8 makes answering this question almost trivial. Here are the details.

iPhone user interface quirk #1 for audiobooks

Posted on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

Dan Sanderson provides a clear explanation, including pretty good photos, of one of the user interface “quirks” that can get you when using the iPhone for audiobooks, namely, the iPhone’s indicator and toggle buttons for Repeat and Shuffle modes are somewhat hidden, not 100% clear, and can be toggled accidentally if you’re not careful.

When listening […]

Free audiobooks via podcasts

Posted on Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

The San Francisco Chronicle recently ran a story about fledgling authors who get their start by publishing their books online, via podcast:

Take my book. It’s free. Giving away books as podcasts is new way to promote sales.

The basic idea is, the author reads their novel a chunk at a time, recording it, and publishing […]

Random House dropping DRM for audiobooks

Posted on Wednesday, February 27th, 2008

In a weblog post titled A Big Day For DRM, writer Maya Reynolds provides a concise (after three paragraphs about a hotel upgrade) and personalized look at this week’s news that Random House Audio Group is dropping DRM from their audiobooks.

Managing audiobooks on a small-capacity iPod

Posted on Friday, February 15th, 2008

Managing audiobooks on a small-capacity iPod is a new article I’ve posted in Aldo on Audiobooks, which describes some of the ways I manage what goes onto my iPod. The article is for anyone whose iTunes Library size exceeds the capacity of their iPod or iPhone, but it’s especially helpful to anyone who has a […]

Complete set of Harry Potter audiobooks at Amazon.com

Posted on Wednesday, January 30th, 2008

I’m still waiting for a deluxe boxed set of all the audiobooks, like the deluxe print books set, but if you’re just looking for a great deal on a complete set, packaging be damned, here’s all seven Harry Potter audiobooks at Amazon.com, at a 40% discount from full retail.

It’s still $275, but considering what […]


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