Downloadable digital audio books continue to skyrocket in popularity with book lovers for a variety of reasons. The primary reason for their rising popularity is the fact that they are so convenient on a variety of levels. Compare the ease of instantly downloading an audiobook and instantly transferring it to your iPod, mp3 player or cell phone with the tedious process of ordering a CD set, waiting for it to arrive in the mail and then converting the CDs to mp3 files. Even if you don't mess with the conversion process you're still left with the headache of having to deal with all of those CDs. And what happens if one of them gets a deep scratch rendering it unlistenable? The whole set is now worthless and you have to pay to replace it. And don't even get us started on books on tape! How many times in the past did you have your books on tape get eaten by tape decks or fade into oblivion due to repeated playback? Thankfully digital audio books are impervious to such damage and will last forever.
Now some people do prefer books on CD for one reason or another. One big reason that comes up a lot is the fact that many car CD players are not capable of playing mp3s or other similar digital files. Also many car stereos don't have an input for iPods or other mp3 players. But that just brings us to another convenient aspect of digital audiobooks, the fact that they can easily be converted to standard audio CDs with free software. This way you get the best of both worlds - the convenience of downloading digital files immediately and being able to listen to audio books on CD in your vehicle!
