Listening practices for audio books - 3

It is estimated that currently, there are close to 25,000 titles of audio books on the format types of cassettes, downloads or CDs. These titles also range from novels, to learning books, to simple know hows to history.

Whatever the content type, audio books are truly effective means of imparting knowledge to people.

Because listening is not as tedious as other physical activities, people find audio books more advantageous. Thus, a listener can also do other activities or chores while at the same time, listening to an audio book.

For example, a housewife can listen to an audio book while doing the laundry. An executive can listen to an audio book while driving his way to the office.

Blind people can also make use of audio books. Since they cannot read, and books published especially for the blind are limited in number and are hard to find, blind people can always opt to buy audio books instead.

Audio books are also great because they can be replayed or paused anytime. Thus, a learner could easily retrieve data by simply clicking the rewind button, or skip unnecessary portions of a book by pushing the fast forward function button.

Audio Books : Different Formats-2

There are three major format types of audio books. There are CDs, cassette tapes and Internet downloads. All formats have specific uses and advantages and all cater to different audience.

CDs today dominate the audio book format because they are easily accessible, easily carried and produces better sound quality. Almost all audio equipment nowadays are equipped with CD playing capacities.

Cassette tapes are the pioneering format because the first audio books introduced to the market more than two decades ago were in the form of cassette tapes.

Still, some people prefer the cassette format over CDs because cassette tapes do not easily break and playing cassettes in players are simpler. Some people are also just determined to not bid goodbye to their cassettes easily.

Downloadable formats of audio books make up about 6% of the current audio book market globally. An online user can easily download an audio book in a Web site for such activities.

However, some people do not rely on online purchases, especially if the transactions would require credit card accounts. Quality and speed of downloading also depend on the Internet connection, whether its broadband or the slower dial up, and the memory capacity of the computer.

Playing audio book downloads also is not that convenient because people can only play them using the computer. Otherwise, the audio book download must be burned or transferred to a CD. That way, the format becomes CD, but the source is Internet download.