Audible.com Customer Service

[arsolot]

Recently, I had a curious exchange with Audible.com's customer service.

Cormac McCarthy has a new book, The Road, due to be published later this month. I noticed that there is an unabridged audio version to be published at the same time. Audible.com's list of new books to become available soon didn't included The Road, so I submitted a question to Audible:

Me: "Will Audible have Cormac McCarthy's new book, "The Road", available as a selection when it is published this month?"

Audible Customer Service: "We are always increasing our inventory every month. Rather or not you see this, we are increasing the titles we have, some Unabridged, some Abridged. Just to let you know, there might be times when we might not get titles cause of copyrights are not given. There are times when we might not get them because we didn't know about the titles. If you wish, you could always go to www.audible.com/request, so you could request them. There are never estimated dates released on a title in negotiation."

I'm guessing that The Road is not going to be available on Audible.com.

 

[CJNeverWinter]

actually that is audible.com's automated response to titles that they normally wont have. you could try the request link. but I dont know if audible would listen.....

 

[arsolot]

actually that is audible.com's automated response to titles that they normally wont have. you could try the request link. but I dont know if audible would listen.....

I'd pretty much assumed the same thing. But, if it is a canned response, someone there could actually read it, edit it, and have it make a little sense.

 

[goldcoaster]

I think the robot needs to have a few more english lessons!

 

[arsolot]

Even though I got the message that the book in which I was interested was not going to be available on Audible, I decided to reply to the gobbledygook from Audible just to see what I would get the second go 'round. Here's the exchange:

Me: "My question was really a simple "yes or no" question. I didn't ask for
a lecture on the reasons a book might not be available on Audible.

While I may infer that your answer to my question was "no," in reviewing
your answer, I'm really not sure.

Permit me to ask my question again:

Will Audible have Cormac McCarthy's new book, "The Road", available as a
selection when it is published this month?"

Audible's reply: "Thank you for contacting Audible.com.

As per your email, currently we do not have that title in stock. However I have made a special request for that book to be added to our audio book library. unfortunately, it is still up to the publishing house to give us permission to use their book. So as of now, "The Road" is currently not one of our audibooks just yet. Thank you for your patience and for contacting Audible, Have a great day!"

Observations:

1) Audible's handling of my request for information about The Road is consistent with my prior experience in sending emails to Audible: they don't read my initial email, and their reply is always non-responsive to my question. Then, I follow up with a second email, complaining that I didn't get an answer to my first email, and Audible then actually reads and understands my question and replies with a more or less responsive message.

2) As The Road isn't even published yet, I was amused to note that Audible's reply that the book is not currently "in stock." No one's got the book yet, it's publication date is 9/26/06!

 

[texana]

Upcoming New Releases

I have been puzzled that two other upcoming releases (John Grisham, Innocent Man, October 10 and David Baldacci, The Collectors, October 17) do not appear in Audible's Coming Soon list which covers September and October. I hope we are not seeing a reluctance on the part of authors and publishers make their content available to Audible. We should know in a month or so if a worrisome trend is developing.

 

[moriond]

Cormac McCarthy has a new book, The Road, due to be published later this month. I noticed that there is an unabridged audio version to be published at the same time. Audible.com's list of new books to become available soon didn't included The Road, so I submitted a question to Audible

I'm guessing that The Road is not going to be available on Audible.com.

You can always go to the entry for The Road at Recorded Books, LLC (producer of the unabridged recording) in a pinch and rent the CDs for $14.50 when it comes out.

I don't always see new books that Audible carries/will carry listed in the Coming Soon lists -- even when they do release them. In a few instances, I recall books that were listed as Coming Soon with a specific release date not appearing (e.g. Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God) until several months later.

A few other interesting new audiobook releases that haven't shown up (yet) at Audible:

• The re-release of To Kill A Mockingbird this August is read by Sissy Spacek. From the sample audio at the linked Harper Collins site, this is a pretty good production, although I still prefer the 1997 version recorded by Roses Prichard for Audio Partners.
  
• A fourth book in Lian Hearn's Tales of the Otori saga, The Harsh Cry of the Heron, was released on September 7. This series has been recommended several times (cf., this post by robert). See http://www.theotori.com/ for excerpts and more information about the (printed) book.
  (Added to post: Highbridge Audio also mentions that a prequel volume, Heaven's Net is Wide, will be published next year. See their Spotlight on Lian Hearn's The Tales of the Otori.)

 

[arsolot]

moriond:

Thanks very much for your interesting reply. I may try to rent The Road as you suggest, if Audible doesn't include it. I note that they included McCarthy's No Country For Old Men as a selection when it was published last year. And, I note that Amazon.com will have the CD of The Road available for purchase for $20 when it is published later this month

I also really liked the Roses Pritchard version of To Kill A Mockingbird. I obtained that version from my local library. I've no doubt Sissy Spacek's version will be excellent as well.

OT: I'm into Lonesome Dove right now (over 36 hours in lenght!) and am enjoying it. And, before that, I listened to Lolita read by Jeremy Irons and would give that my highest rating. And, I'm reading (print) City of God by Cormac McCarthy. This is an early book of his, set in the Tennessee hills. It is beautifully written, in fact some parts are remarkable. It is, however, really weird.

 

[moriond]

Recent books read/heard but not from Audible are a bit off-topic, but I thought I'd point out that for new releases it's worth checking other sources. I listened to Bernard Cornwell's The Lords of the North last month. This is the third book in a series of historical novels covering the period of Alfred the Great -- Britain at the time of the Viking invasions. The two earlier volumes, The Last Kingdom and The Pale Horseman are only available from Audible in abridged format (read by Jamie Glover for Harper Audio; unabridged versions are read by Tom Sellwood for BBC Audiobooks, America). Both abridged and unabridged versions of The Last Kindom were finalists for best fiction in their respective categories (abridged, unabridged) in the 2006 Audie Awards. Although I've only had access to the abridged audio versions of these books, they're quite good, and I'd point Cornwell fans to the link. The hardcover edition of The Lords of the North will not be released in the U.S. until February 2007.

NAXOS has a number of interesting new unabridged classics appearing this fall. For example, they estimate that the production of War and Peace will run to 56 CDs! For details, check the ABC Book Show program where Nicolas Soames, producer and managing director of NAXOS Audiobooks, discusses this effort at the NAXOS Audibooks podcast page at iTunes. There's also a video podcast showing readers recording Bleak House (QuickTime required) available from either the podcast page or from the link to the NAXOS web page.