The Pros and Cons with Audio Books

With disadvantages associated with having audio books in CD formats such as length, costs, convenience, etc, it is now a better option to have them in downloadable digital formats.

Having audio books in downloadable digital formats eliminates the problems of lengths, costs, convenience, etc.

In other words, having audio books in digital formats now defies the limitations and disadvantages that both audiocassettes and CDs have.

One of the most important benefits of audio books in downloadable digital formats is the instantaneous nature in which an audio book can get from the producer to the customers.

For example, as soon as an audio book is produced, it can get to the hands of the customer within mere minutes in a downloadable digital format, but this can't happen with audiocassette tapes and CDs.

Also, the cost to the producer is very low, unlike the cost associated with audiocassettes and CDs.

All of these are big advantages, but below are some of the biggest disadvantages of audio books in downloadable digital formats and how to solve them:

Bandwidth problems: Unlike how easy it is to download music on the Internet, it isn't as easy to download complete audio books - because of their size.

While a musical song can be just 4 minutes long and take very little time to download, an audio book of about 3 hours would take far longer to download - depending on the Internet connectivity of the person downloading.

As serious as this disadvantage seems, below are ways to still enjoy your audio books in downloadable digital formats, despite this problem:

Solution to the Bandwidth problems: This problem can be solved by doing the download in your free time, not when you want to get the audio book at the same time. For example, you can start the download and go out to work or go to bed. When you return or awake, the download would be completed.

Or if you have slow Internet connection at home, you can look for alternative locations to download the audio books. If you have faster Internet connectivity in the office, you can do the download there.

Do ensure that you are allowed to do that in the office. In other words, talk to your employer about this first to be sure it is acceptable. After downloading the audio book you can then take it with you via a zip disk or a flash disk to listen to at home.

Another solution to bandwidth and downloading problems is to take the time to search for and select audio book formats that are specially made for people who have low-bandwidth Internet connections.

These formats are usually those with the highest compression ratio – thereby making the download lighter and faster.