Don't be Misled About Audiobooks

Although many people have now heard of audiobooks, it’s a fairy safe be that most of these people have never actually taken a moment to consider exactly what an audiobook is.

After all, unless you had an obvious interest in audiobooks, why would you take such an interest?

Likewise, some people, perhaps people who might tell you that they don’t like books, will shy away from audiobooks, simply because of the name, and the image that this name might conjure up for them.

This is a shame in many ways, because audiobooks can be, and can do, so much more than their name might suggest.

Of course, the very name audiobook will tell you that it is a book that you can access in audio format.

And this is, of course entirely correct. There are many thousands of great audiobook titles out there on the market that are literally pre-existing books that are read onto an audio soundtrack for you, the listener.

That description is, in itself, almost childishly simple, yet at the same time, extremely accurate, as far as it goes.

As the owner of my own online audiobook store at http://www.takalive.com, I can tell you that even this incredibly simplistic definition hides a couple of very important factors which partially explain the rapidly increasing popularity of audiobooks.

First, in the same way that we can all talk quicker than we can write (or punch a keyboard) we can all listen much more quickly than we can read. Also, we can listen wherever we are, and whatever we are doing, again, unlike reading a written book, which is something you can only do when the circumstances allow.

For these reasons, audiobooks are an incredibly handy and convenient alternative to the written word, although I would personally argue that audiobooks can never replace the written word.

The second thing about listening to an audiobook, assuming that you are listening o a high quality production (and you definitely should be!) then the narrator or reader will be a top professional.

Sometimes this narrator might b the creator of the original written work himself (of herself), sometimes a famous actor or sometimes a not-so famous actor who, in fact, is a specialist in voice-overs and audio text readings.

All of these different groups will bring their own interpretations to the audiobook text, and three different people may indeed bring entirely different interpretations.

For you, as a listener, this gives you the opportunity to hear, for example, a book that you have already read in a completely different voice, in an entirely new light.
Indeed, for me, as someone who listens to many audiobooks, this is one of the great delights of the audio medium. I know how I imagine the story to be told, but other people can tell if quite differently, making it, in some cases, almost a brand new story!

However, in all of these situations, we are talking a bout written books being transposed into an audio soundtrack, and here we come to the reason why audiobook is, in fact, a little bit misleading as a product title.

In many cases, audiobooks are not books at all!

Speeches, talks, sales presentations, radio and TV shows, all are available as audiobooks, although, of course, they were never books I the true sense of the word.

For example, in my own store, I have brilliant Internet Marketing presentations from industry leading figures such as John Reese and Armand Morin, lined up alongside BBC comedy classics (some free) and many, many radio favorites of the 50’s and 60’s from both sides of the Atlantic!

So, whilst the phrase audiobook is a handy shorthand term, it actually only paints a part of the overall picture, which is that many, many different and diverse types of audio works which are not, nor ever have been, actually books, are nevertheless called audiobooks.

Even if you are a person who professes to not like books, therefore, I would still urge you to give audiobooks a try.