As time for dilly dallies shortens, the publishing industry has found itself against the ropes. Blogs have profited from the shortcomings, giving bits of contents to knowledge consumers in 200-500 word posts. If popularity of twitter points towards anything, it is that the average person today wants bit of information to fulfill their daily needs. During this time, audio books have carved a niche for itself.
Widespread in the United States, in Britain, in Italy, in Germany, in Poland or in Northern Europe (more than 10% of the book market), the audio book market has truly advanced. Â The last two decades have seen an increase in popularity of audio books with consumers favoring listening to a book instead of reading it.
Audio books have become very popular with the development of new audio technologies and there are many reasons for their success. They are slowly gaining on print media as people are increasingly enjoy the convenience of listening to audio books on their favorite devices, which has also been shown to improve vocabulary skills in children. They are also much more convenient and often more expensive, a trait that will soon depart from its armory as technology is consistently improving with publishers battle it out for bragging rights.
Audio books make it easier to consume information that is stored in books. It negates your tedious reading speed and lack of long concentration spans that have deterred you from enjoying literature. With technology on the reader’s side, it has become a very immature excuse to keep away from books.
Among its benefits the foremost is also the most obvious, that is not reading. One may wonder why this is an advantage. For visual challenge is a better way to enjoy a book from the reading through the text in Braille. For people who may be visually impaired, the audio book because it still allows prevents eyestrain and allows the person to do other activities such as walking, exercise and yard work while listening. Even listen to your favorite music while on the treadmill. Many of us spend hours commuting between our workplace and this time can be used effectively by listening to a book. Catch up on your favorite books and help pass the time on those long commutes to your work.
Besides saving time and make your trip a pleasant experience, audio books provide a better way to enjoy a book. When you are not involved in the activity of reading that you are more relaxed and your mind is completely free to form strong visualization of the story and start living the various characters in the book. If you are in the personal development books, imagine the impact this will have when you are actually listening to your favorite coach rather than just reading the words.
As their popularity has increased, audio books can now be had in various languages, and even accents. Long commuting times can now be used to self-train and self-improve. However, it is for the visually challenged people, who have most profited from these books. Knowledge is for all and audio books bring it to your doorstep, making sure anyone and everyone who has been deprived of it has access to it.
For writers, audio books are the third source of income after income or royalties from e-books and printed books. Once produced for best sellers, they have carved a niche for themselves in the extremely busy life of today’s consumer. However, their stake of the total market is still small as compared to print and e-books, with only 5% of traditional books (e-books and print books) are produced into audio books.
Apple still has high hopes on the medium after giving it a windfall of support. Despite removing the DRM on music found on iTunes, the industry giant is adamant on digital locks on audio books. If 2009 marked the end for Apple DRM for Iphone music titles available on the iTunes Store platform, the Apple brand has not so far done with the digital lock on some file types. Thus, the DRM is still present on the audio books. And Apple does not seem inclined to soften its stance on the subject, as evidenced by the blogger and author Cory Doctorow.
Audible, whose files have no true sense of the term imposes an end-user license and a specific file format which ultimately amount to the same as imposing DRM. Apple remains stuck to his locks that have embarrassed many users. For these cases the DRM, so the problem remains from distributors who cling to what they believe is an anti-piracy solution.
For years, the preferred mode of audio book was the audio cassette audio books but already circulating on vinyl record. For several years now there are audio books on compact disc (CD) or as digital files for download (mainly formats MP3, Sixtrid, Audible, Ogg Vorbis, or m4b -. AAC -with chapters), which resulted in a significant reduction in price.
Kant raised the question ‘What is a book?’ in his book Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. His description of the relationship between the book as a material object and the book as an intellectual or aesthetic work proves that there was and will always be a need for them. With digital media gaining nous, and pushed by time constraints audio books are set to claim a greater share of the pie.
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