After reading the article Authors irked by text-to-speech on Kindle 2 about Kindle’s new beta ability to transform ebooks into audio books, I couldn’t help but think: crybabies!
Look, audio book people, technology advances. That’s the whole point. If you don’t embrace it, you will be left behind. For example, do you remember when newspapers started hitting that wacky World Wide Web in the later 1990s? There were a scant few articles and you had to pay to read them. Newspapers were playing not to lose, as opposed to playing to win. What has happened to those papers? RIP, baby. The savvy ones embraced the technology, figured out that they could make revenue by advertising online and offered their news for free. Now I can even subscribe to feeds from newspapers from my home town, over 1000 miles away, without a ridiculous delivery fee. Hoorah!
What would have happened to Kodak if in 2002 when the 1 megapixel, $60 camera hit the US market, and their CEO had insisted that digital photography was a threat that needed to be fought? They’d be out of business. Hands down. Honestly, what family of 4 wants to buy film, take pictures they can’t see, be limited to 36 on a roll, risk melting the film in a hot car, pay to process it, and pay for prints? Oh, and then buy doubles or more to mail to grandmas and aunts? Instead, Kodak joined the digital world and in addition, offered a whole new level of photo printing services. How awesome is it that you can put together a hardback book full of photos for $30? Or print your kids’ faces on a tie for Father’s Day? (okay it’s more tacky than awesome, but so are Taz t-shirts and people still wear them) Not to mention the easy sharing methods of email, Facebook, Flikr, etc. Thank you, digital photography folks. Now I have a mug emblazened with pitcures of my cat. Yes, tacky, but not Taz tacky.
What about the music industry? Oh Napster. You were so cool before you were illegal. But why? Because you gave us what we wanted: individual songs, for free. Why deal with the expense of clunky packaging and 14 songs you don’t like just to get that one hit? You might recall all of the moaning that bands (eh hem, Metallica) did over this music trading. This trading was then called theft after a few short years (as if we hadn’t been making and trading mix tapes for years). Then finally, it occurred to music folks that 1 mp3 is an entirely different product than a cd with a case and 15 songs. Now we can buy that product as we choose. Download 1 song, 3 songs, a whole album. Hello iPod. See? We’re buying music again, just like we wanted to all along. Was trying to hang on to precious cds and all of their eco-ugly packaging worth suing little Timmy?
Which brings me to the point of this rant: hey audio book people! get with the program! I like audio books. I love when people read to me. And if I were visually impaired, I’d really love, and depend on, audio books. If Amazon.com’s Kindle offers a smart text reader function as a bonus to a regular ebook, all the better! The ball is in your court, audio book industry. You’ve got to play to win, not play to not lose.
Let’s be honest here, Kindle’s beta text reader is crap! It’s robotic and weird, but the idea is solid gold. Fusing the rich voice tones of James Earl Jones into a volume of Grimm’s fairytales would be amazing! And could you imagine hearing David Sedaris’ Santaland Diaries by something as robotic as Dr. Sbaitso? puh-leeease. If I’ve got a long flight, sometimes I just can’t muster the energy to read a book. If i had an ebook that I could read, then switch to audio, oh man! I’d be totally stoked! Send me back to South Dakota because this flight’s going to be awesome. Don’t make me suffer any longer! Make this happen. Audio book folks, you need to work with and not against Kindle developers to get the technology to work well. The change is coming. You’ve got to play to win. Oh, and I’ll totally buy it when you do. Totally.
