What I would like to see with the Publishing Industry.

I'm sitting here, reading some Gutenberg Project books, and having just transcribed Edison's, 'Electricity and Progress' (a feat that was really crazy although short in sound), and then thinking about the shipping costs of books... and that people who listen to audio books are rewarded by less weight in shipping - putting audio learners at a financial advantage.

Huh? Yes. Visual learners read, which means that they have to order books, read stuff online, or play the P2P file swap game - which a few years ago was very much in full swing on IRC channels. The latter just can't be stopped, it's a simple rebellion against the high prices of books and shipping to parts of the world. If costs were lower, it would still happen of course - there are people with larceny in their hearts all the time - but it got me wondering:

Why don't those audio books also contain the text of the books?

It seems like it should be intuitive that people who listen to books might also want to... be able to find stuff in them, read them physically... and be able to find stuff on their hard drives. The people who buy books aren't likely to buy the CDs then; I am one of them (and I admit, I hate audiobook CDs) - but wouldn't that be useful? Why aren't publishers doing that? Fear of piracy? Look, piracy will happen no matter what you do - but people who can afford it will continue to buy stuff.

There will be people that share with their friends, but that's usually a social contract: one person buys a book, another buys a book, they swap when they are done. More than 90% of the books I have read I do not have in my bookcase (and 80% of that 90% were given freely; 20% of that 90% keep me from lending out books now).

People look at my bookcase and say, "Wow, Taran, you have a lot of books."
And I say, "You should have seen the ones that got away!"

So... for someone like me... you know, I would buy an audiobook CD if it had the text on it, as I am now used to reading things on my computer. I'm computer literate in the broadest senses of the term now. But I won't buy an audiobook without it because of the same reason I hate when people read their presentations to me: I can read English faster than anyone - even a New Yorker - can speak English.

I feel like I'm being fined because I prefer to read, courtesy the postage on books. Do publishing companies think we visual learners have more earning capacity than audio learners? The technology is there. I don't get it. And the environmental catastrophe... visual learners are eating the Amazon forest one word at a time! So publishing companies are indirectly creating global warming. Amazon. Books. Trees. Global Warming. Coincidence?

Save some trees, send me CDs!

What? I have to do the thinking for the marketing departments at publishing companies too? Geez...