AudioMysteries.Net

Do you have non-fiction used audio books that you no longer want?  We would be interested in purchasing them.  Our catalog of used audio books at iAudioBookStore.com is heavy on mystery, suspense, thriller and very light on non-fiction.

We wish to expand our non-fiction catalog.  Things we like:  history, memoir, biography.  We stay away from politics and religion.  For more information about selling us your audio books please visit our Sell Your Audio Books page.

We are also looking for general fiction audio books.

We finally added a Science Ficton catagory to our catalog at iAudioBookStore.com.  After 5 years we have our first title, Flashforward.  There are several reasons it has taken so long.

1. Our original focus at AudioMysteries.com was "mysteries, thrillers & suspense."  I decided on this approach because it was impossible to compete with the big players on the internet such as Books on Tape.  I thought that specializing in a specific area made more sense.
2. I love mysteries, and have been and reader and collector of good detective fiction for many years, so I had a good basic working knowledge of the genre.
3. At the time back in 2004 Mysteries made up an almost 20% of the titles on the best seller lists - so I was picking a genre that was popular.
4. The flip side of reason 2 - I'm not a big fan of science fiction.  I have read some Ray Bradbury, but never dipped into the Dune series or any of the other important writers.  Because of that I don't know enough to make good picks in the genre.

So why now?  Some customers have asked for us to expand into new areas, and science fiction has been mentioned.  Also I was able to get a title that has been recently reviewed because of the new ABC television series based on the 1998 novel by Robert J. Sawyer.  I figured this was a good place to start.  I will see if there is any interst based on sales/rentals or comments from customers asking for more science fiction.

It is my birthday in a few days and always at this time of year I get a bit reflective.  Just this week I finally met my neighbor who moved in next door last year.  Somehow we just haven't met.  My neighbor converted part of his very large garage into a library for his extensive book collection.

Yesterday he dropped by to deliver some of my mail that had gone to him.  We had a quick chat and I found out that he is a big fan of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe.  My favorite mystery writer.  I happen to have a nice collection of Wolfe first editions so one of these days we are going to get together and share our book collections.

I haven't spent much time collecting in recent years.  It is very difficult to find the Nero Wolfe volumes that I'm missing.  Each year about this time J.A. Jance visits Cochise county for a book signing.  I always get her latest.  Jance lived in Sierra Vista many years ago and still has a connection to this area, particularly through here Sheriff Joanna Brady series. 

As we move into late summer the wonderful PBS Masterpiece Mystery! series has ended.  This wasn't a great year, although you have to give PBS credit for trying the Detective Kurt Wallander series by Henning Mankell.  The Poirot and Miss Marples didn't seem as well executed as in the past.  But it's still a joy to see classic mystery on television, not just the police procedurals that we get most often now.

I wish PBS would try some American authors.  How about Grafton or Paretsky or Evanovich? 

I recently purchased a Belkin TuneBase FM for the iPod.  This allows me to listen to my audio books loaded on the iPod using the radio in my Ford Explorer.  It's not a bad system.  The Belkin device transmits to the radio using an empty FM frequency.  Since I live in a rural area, there are a lot of them.  The sound quality is very good with only hints of static on occasion.  The only problem is that the device plugs into my cigarette lighter and even when the ignition is off and I'm out of the car the iPod continues to play and charge.  This is not a good thing since it will run down the battery.

Unfortunately there is no on/off switch on the TuneBase.  So I have to unplug the entire thing every time I leave the car.  It's not convenient for shot trips so I still listen to regular CD audio books on trips into town.

I'm listening to Immoral on my iPod.  On CD in the CD player in the car, Michael Connelly's newest, The Scarecrow.

I have downloaded two audio books to my iPod.  It takes a bit of work as I mentioned previously.  I will post information on how to do it shortly.  The 16 hour book takes up about 412 MB.  Not bad when you have over 6 GB of storage on the iPod.  I purchased a very neat FM broadcaster/charger to use in the car.  It finds an unused FM station then plays your audio book through your car's speakers.  I did a quick test run with it and it seemed to work.

I haven't had a chance to use it yet since I'm still trying to finish First Family by David Baldacci which currently sits in my CD player in the car.