Podiobooks help you “go green”
I’m a rather green person, though there is lots of room for personal growth in that area. I drive a hybrid, recycle, and generally support just about any initiative which will lower my ecological footprint. And I just found out in Steve Rubel’s Simple Ways to Go “Media Green” post that Podiobooks.com is doing it’s part to help, too!
Like lots of people I have become more aware of what I can and should be doing to help the environment. (Thanks, Al.) Now I am taking this to the next level by getting toward what I call a “Media Green” state. Basically, I am converting all the media I consume (and there is a lot of it) into the most environmentally friendly format I can find, without sacrificing too much of the experience.
Steve goes on to mention that his first step was to stop reading printed books in favor of audiobooks. He give several good reasons to make this jump:
Now that MP3 players are ubiquitous - and cheap - [the] selection [at iTunes and Audible] has grown a lot over the years.
Yes it has. And it’s also caused many underpublished authors, or those authors who are looking for alternate methods of distributing their work, to take advantage of this ubiquity by releasing their own audio books in serialized format totally free of charge. I can think of 160 examples…
For starters, I love that I can carry several audiobooks with me at once. Try that with bound books. You’ll break your back. I keep two or three at all times lined up on my iPhone ready to go.
Very true. And some extremely busy people have discovered that “just in time” delivery of episodes is actually better — for them — than having to figure out where they left off of an entire audiobook. Consuming the book in serialized form reduces this confusion, and makes it easy — for some — to listen to more than one book during the day or week.
they actually cost less over time than hard copy books. I wish publishers made all of their titles available in audio format.
But the books you get from Podiobooks.com are a whole lot cheaper than hard copy books — as in FREE! And yeah, I wish all titles were available in audio format too, Steve. But I’m happy to say that many authors are starting to realize that they have the power — and skill — to release audio versions on their own. Hooray for the forward thinkers!
November 8th, 2007 at 8:18 am
Maybe we should start carrying PDF books too, Evo.
November 8th, 2007 at 9:10 am
I like audio books, and appreciate their portability (and ‘cost,’ with podiobooks!)
But I will always love the actual paper book. I want to put them on my shelves, and take them down to read on a rainy day with a cup of cocoa — I want to be able to page back and forth to find things I’ve already read.
I’ll take the story in whatever form it comes. But I prefer the form I can hold in my hand.
Anemone
November 8th, 2007 at 9:33 am
Sony has an E-reader which I love, lets me carry around at lot of books. Google and one other company is coming out with a reader as well so even if you like to read there are still options for going paperless for that.