Now Available -- Audiobook and Digital Versions of ‘Think Like a Commoner, Second Edition'

I had not given much thought to doing an audiobook because I didn’t like the terms offered by Audible, the near-monopoly retailer of audiobooks owned by Amazon. 

Audible’s exclusive contracts with authors prevent libraries and independent bookstores from lending or selling audiobooks, in effect preventing competition. Its royalty rates are below industry standards, and author complaints about lack of transparency are legion. Audible also uses digital rights management (DRM) technology that vastly empowers sellers to set the terms of the user experience, by, for example, dictating what devices may be used to listen to an audiobook, declaring whether sharing is possible (generally no), and making it difficult for authors and users to leave the Audible platform.

[For more on Audible’s hammerlock on audiobook sales and their anti-social terms, see “Why None of My Books Are Available on Audible” (July 25, 2022), by digital activist and author Cory Doctorow.] 

Fortunately, my friends at Radio Kingston, a community AM and FM radio station in Kingston, New York, invited me to use their studios to record an audiobook version of Think Like a Commoner. Executive Director Jimmy Buff even persuaded me to read the book myself. He insisted that whenever he listens to an audiobook, he wants to hear the author reading the book, not a professional voice.

So a few months ago, that's exactly what I did. I read my book aloud. I was fortunate to have audio engineer Andrew Halstead to supervise my recording sessions over the course of two very long days. He then edited the audio into more than a dozen crisp, clear readings of chapters and other sections of the book. 

As thrilled as I am, I still want to encourage people to read and buy the book. Print is my preferred way of absorbing an author’s ideas and style. So I salute New Society Publishers for being such a friend of the commons and a wonderful publisher. It has shown courage in publishing important books dealing with progressive politics, economics, ecology, and system change, and in allowing authors to publish books under a Creative Commons license. Especially in this networked digital age, it's important for flows of writing (and more) to circulate as robustly as possible.