Rocket Bomber - article - business - retail - Found: MP3 Audiobook Downloads

I spend a lot more time cruising booksellers’ websites than, um, just about anyone. (it nominally only takes up an hour or so each week — past the time I also spend to shop for stuff for myself — which doesn’t sound like much in and of itself, but because of the odd hobby even after loading up web sites I look at a lot, and I mean a lot of book listings each week.)

So, anyway… ranking at #701 in the graphic novel category at bn.com this past Sunday (…I did mention I look at a lot of these, didn’t I) was this gem:

If it weren’t for some serious miscategorization I’d never have seen it; of course, mis-filings like these are so common I hardly notice, like speed bumps. This one sticks, though:

MP3. Audio. Download.

from a bookseller. for an audio book.

Shit, son, this is news.

Heck, we could have been selling these for 6 months already. I have no way of knowing, and only a coincidence (the Dark Hunger manga bringing unrelated Feehan titles into my graphic novel search results) brought this to my attention. [by “we”, I mean B&N is the large corporation that signs my paychecks, not that I have anything to do with bn.com]

Unlike the nook, or the e-book software for your PC, Mac, Blackberry, and iPhone, no major press releases heralded the entrance into the market of MP3 downloadable books. (something may hit next week, I’m thinking)

The page at bn.com looks a lot like this and it looks like B&N mean business. To be fair, Amazon also has some listings, though they’re, um, different. I’m thinking either Amazon doesn’t quite have their act together yet, or they’re feeling a bit of a burn from publishers over the Kindle’s text-to-speech function.

Downloadable audio books are nothing new; Audible (now a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon, in fact) has been doing this for years. The major twist is Downloadable MP3s. Legal ones. Audible uses a proprietary format which I’m sure is fine, and all, so long as one remains an Audible customer (and is Amazon’s ownership of Audible also a factor here?) but as has been proven over and over again in the past decade in the world of music by Napster and it’s spiritual descendants, the public prefers open formats and portability (and free, natch, but piracy was another essay) over being tied into a single store and company

Hell, that’s the reason I buy MP3s from Amazon over iTunes — even though iTunes has gotten better, from what I’ve heard, but screw ‘em. DRM sucks, and I don’t want even a hint of it if I can help it.

This is one more front of the e-book wars, and B&N just parked alongside Amazon and fired another salvo.

Edit 7:35pm 2 Jan — Same thing at Borders.com, though there doesn’t seem to be much there yet:

As noted above, Amazon has Audible; even the links on Amazon’s regular site for audio book downloads (when you can find them) kick you out to the audible.com site.