Magazines – Page 10 – Auxiliary Memory

Lessons from Blogging

Exercise for my flabby memory is the top reason why I put so much time writing on these blogs. If I go too long without writing, I’ll notice that I’m forgetting more words in day to day conversations – I have to keep writing to fight the decline of my mind. But am I writing anything worthy of reading? I have no trouble thinking up zillions of things to write about, but are my random inspirations really interesting to anyone but me?

I wished I had the discipline to knock out one 1,000 word essay each night, and only in an hour. What a fantastic workout in my word gym! I’m lucky to finish two essays a week, each taking 4-8 hours. And that doesn’t count the two to three abortive pieces each week I don’t finish.

Every evening when I sit down to write, I hope to have an idea that I’ve been contemplating all the day to polish. It helps if I’m thinking clearly and not tired, which means I need to keep my body in shape. Sometimes when I’m tired, focusing on an idea will generate energy, so it helps to try to write. I wish I could say that I’m always inspired by my topic, and it allows me to chisel out one clear expression of a carefully considered thought.

What really happens is I start with one vague concept that causes me to vomit out a torrent of words as fast as I can, which I shape by rewriting several drafts. As I write, I research with Google, hoping to find concrete pieces of information to support my ideas. Between struggling to retrieve lost words, phrases and memories out of my own noggin, I trawl the net looking for new words and verifications of poorly remembered details. Often I use Google to find the words I can’t recall by searching on related ideas.

I’m sure if I didn’t write these essays, my mind would turn to mush. Rereading my essays I realize I have a long ways to go towards developing coherent structured writing. So a new theory has occurred to me about blogging. What if writing is more beneficial than just strengthening my ability to recall words. What other lessons am I learning from my WordPress exercising?

It’s quite easy to blather away about anything, but that’s not good neural exercise. And, quite often I might mention, I’ll tackle a subject that’s either too big for a blog post, or beyond my ability to define clearly, and I’ll have to abandon the project. Finishing a piece is part of the healthy process, and giving up on an idea leaves me feeling the same way as when I’m having a conversation and I can’t find that damn word I want.

Up to now, I’ve mostly been working to express an idea that quickly flashed by in my brain. Sometimes, if I write about a specific topic I’ll do a lot of research to gather facts, like when I write about subscription music services. This gives me a taste for journalism. Just a small taste, but enough to realize the work required to write non-fiction. Opinion essays can be as creative as writing fiction, but both are way to easy to do badly.

The next question is: Do I write anything useful for other people to read? If all I’m doing is exercising my wimpy brain, why would a reader care? My life is no more interesting than anyone else’s, so why would anyone want to read my thoughts? I think the next stage in the evolution of my writing, I should think about each essay as a product that is useful in some way. Since my product is free, I don’t actually have to worry about it’s monetary cost to readers, but I personally consider time, extremely valuable, so I don’t want to waste your time.

That means the next challenge I work on learning from blogging is to write 5-10 minute essays that are well worth their cost in time. That’s quite a challenge, one I’m not sure I can achieve.

Looking at my statistics tell me which essays have been more successful than others. I know from the WordPress stats that I have around 20-25 people subscribing to my blog as a RSS feed, and 200-300 people finding their way to my pages accidently, through Google and other search engines, or by links put up on various blogs that are kind enough to list Auxiliary Memory. It is flattering that people actually read my blog at all, so I feel a responsibility to write something time-worthy.

When I think of all the great books and magazine articles I read, I can’t believe people would waste their time on any blog, much less mine. And there are thousands of blogs better than mine. I have to assume that there is a quality to blogs that people like that they don’t find in regular magazines. Or I have to wonder if people only read blogs because they are like kudzu growing over the net, choking up search engine returns, just too visible to ignore.

Learning about what people want to read will be my second lesson from blogging. My most popular essay is, “The Greatest Science Fiction Novels of the 20th Century,” with over 10,000 hits total, and getting 30-60 more each day. In other words, I’ve accidently picked a topic that a small number of people want to know about daily. If you search on that title in Google, I’m 3rd in the returns at the moment, after two links to books at Amazon.com.

This doesn’t say anything about the quality of my essay. I’ve just hit the right combination of words and ideas to be rated high with Google, and the topic has a steady interest. I call that “topic background radiation.” Occasionally I’ll write about something that people have a time related interested in, like the Toshiba NB205 netbook, which just came out and I immediately reviewed. I’ve gotten 74 hits on that one so far today. When the Toshiba NB205 gets outdated, those numbers will drop off. But until then, was my review useful? I know I solved one lady’s problem, with her new netbook.

Generally, I talk about my reading. For instance, I wrote a weird take on “The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury. I’ve gotten almost a 1,000 hits on that one, trickling in at 3-4 a day, which is a revealing topic background radiation. I’m guessing it is a story used in schools for discussion, because I’ve written on far more famous SF novels, and their topic background radiation is very low, like 1-2 a week.

Of course, this all depends on how Google ranks my page. For some reason, I’m in the first page of returns for “The Veldt,” but on the second page for Have Space Suit-Will Travel by Robert A. Heinlein and Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke, two books I think are very worthy of reading but seldom get hits at all. Or is that because people seldom go past the first page of Google returns when searching for a review? And if someone is thinking about reading one of those books, did I say anything to help them make their decision?

Once in a blue moon I’ll accidentally mention something that’s in the news, like the Kindle Reader for the iPhone. That post got scads of hits for a day or two, and hardly ever got called into reading action since.

If I wanted to just get hits, I would go to Google Zeitgeist everyday and pick a topic. Why are “basking sharks” and “raging elephants” so interesting on July 14th, 2009? And who the hell are Shane Carwin and Lisa Loring? Shows my lack of pop culture knowledge. It is quite doubtful that Google will rank my page within its first 100 returned just because I mention those hot search names and phrases. It’s not that easy to get noticed. And God knows, many people try. For what value are hits, really? There’s no guarantee that people read what they hit on.

Take this essay, for example. What value is it? Because I’m not reviewing a book, movie or computer product, I’m pretty sure it won’t get many hits at all. Hopefully, I haven’t bored my handful of regular readers, but have I given them anything worth their time? If anything, I’ve taught them not to read blogs but write them, it’s good memory exercise. If I had some quantitative way of proving writing blogs helps with memory, I might have a good article. Readers love self-help topics.

Here’s something to consider that might be worth your minutes spent here reading. If everyone read a little each evening, but only read the absolute best essays and articles, the English speaking world would only need ten monthly magazines, but let’s stretch that to one hundred for reading variety and the coverage of the diversity of sub-cultures. All writers would compete to write the very best essays and articles each month to sell to those one hundred editors. Everything else could be considered crap and thus time unworthy.

So why read off the web? Because it allows you to read exactly what you want to read, at the moment you choose. It’s pitiful to think that any of my essays come up on the first page of Google returns. If you search on the phrase “The Time Machine by H. G. Wells” my essay comes up 5th. It really shouldn’t. The real lesson from tonight, is why the very best essays ever written on any topic, aren’t the ones that Google links to in your search.

JWH – 7/14/9

Filming Science Fiction Short Stories

Over at BestScienceFictionStories.com Rusty Keele got an email from a film director asking him about which science fiction short stories would make great 10-15 minute films. Go by and post your suggestions. I suggested “The Menace From Earth” by Robert A. Heinlein, even though it would have to be cut down some to meet the time limit.

I remember the science fiction stories from the old Twilight Zone series that started back 1959. Those short films had tremendous impact, so it is possible to tell a gripping story in 25 minutes, but I think it’s going to take a special kind of tale to work in 10-15 minutes. Maybe it will be flash video fiction. However, limiting the length of the film makes it much easier for an amateur film maker to produce, and with people watching videos on YouTube, Hulu, and on their iPods, making short science fiction films might be a great idea.

Since I’m always wishing for more people to discover the wonders of the science fiction short story, and support the dying science fiction magazines (F&SF, Asimov’s, Analog), I’d especially love to see short films based on recent stories from the magazines, and use those films to promote the science fiction short story market. Even though those markets are dying, they still have 15,000-30,000 readers, so that’s a ready audience for the films. I wonder if some kind of marketing synergy could be attained by tying several small enterprises together.

Could we see a film opening with the flashy logo graphics marketing A SFSignal Production partnered with Asimov’s Science Fiction Films of a John X Smith film …, and maybe backed by money collected from online fans from genre entrepreneurs like those great Broadway producers Max Blaylystock and Leo Bloom?

The trouble is getting people to see the short films. Every year at the Oscars when they present the award for short film I always wonder where to do people see them. It’s a shame theaters can’t replace those annoying trivia shows and commercials they torture their patrons with while they wait for their movies to start with good short films. SFSignal has become a great place to catch a short video. I wonder if short Flash based films on the SF/F magazine sites would get them more subscribers? Macromedia Flash based films have evolved into high tech ways of watching videos online.

Most great science fiction short stories are more suitable for film length productions. I wish movie makers would audition the genre mags every month for potential films to make. Hollywood movie makers are obviously short on material when they have to make Terminator movies over and over and bring back Star Trek for the nth time. I mean, when was the last time you saw a really innovative SF film? There are way too many classic SF novels from the 1950s and 1960s that Hollywood has never filmed for them to be wasting their money on remaking The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Another good game to play, would be to list which great classic SF novels would make mind blowing films. Here are some of my suggestions:

Empire Star by Samuel R. Delany
Mindswap by Robert Sheckley
The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
Have Space Suit-Will Travel by Robert A. Heinlein
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick
Women of the Iron People by Eleanor Arnason
Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke

I could go on and on.

JWH – 2/26/9

The Fate of SF Magazines

Over at Slashdot.org they posted a news announcement with comments, “Difficult Times for SF Magazines” that is very worth reading if you’re worried about the fate of SF magazines. The main announcement was Realms of Fantasy will cease publication with the April issue and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction has dropped it’s schedule from monthly to bi-monthly. The folks leaving comments make some interesting points about the state of SF, with many writers lamenting that SF isn’t what it used to be.

Here’s a comment from Moridineas that I particularly liked:

The difference between then and now–imho–is that the Asimovs, Heinleins, de Camps, etc etc etc are gone, and they haven’t really been replaced. My other opinion is that s.f. was largely a product of the zeitgeist of the what, roughly 50 years that it roughly flourished (1920-1970 or so?). We’ve got HDTVs, the Internet, Star Trek and Star Wars on TV, rovers on Mars, decoding DNA, etc etc. The sense of wonder in s.f. is largely gone because we take so much for granted that was virtually unimaginable back then.

Here’s another worthy comment to consider and was echoed by others from Steeleye Brad:

Ugh, agreeing with this. I ended my subscription to Analog around a year and a half ago, when I realized that the story quality had really gone down the shitter. I found myself starting to read a story, but then quitting 1-2 pages in because they were just so terrible. When I would get an issue and go through every story like this, I gave up. Stories with neat concepts completely ruined by confusing writing and indecipherable plots, lame tales where it was screamingly obvious the main character was an author’s self-insert, and vomit-inducing non-stories that served only to let the author express their political views (normally this is ok, except when the author’s soap-boxing completely drowns out and overwhelms the story).

Ultimately the topic degenerates into the pros and cons of publishing on the Internet and sidestepping the issue of content and whether or not the decline of the SF magazines represents a loss of interest in SF or if its an issue of declining story quality. I brought up this topic in two online SF book clubs and the common comment is they don’t find the stories very engaging. Second to that is many people have busy lives and let all their magazines go unread.

I started subscribing to the SF magazines back in the 1960s and kept subscribing until very recently. I was most faithful to F&SF over the decades. Currently I get F&SF and Asimov’s, but both are up for renewal and I’m not sure I want to renew, at least the paper edition. I might subscribe to digital editions at Fictionwise.com.

To be honest I don’t read them. I try every once in awhile. I have a tremendous nostalgia that makes me want to keep reading these old friends, but when I try I seldom find stories that grab me. And it’s not the ideas, but the characterization. I think when I was young I loved the stories just for the ideas and I wasn’t savvy enough about story telling to know the stories were badly told. Now, after decades of reading great stories I can’t overlook this.

Now don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of far out stories out there, it’s just a matter of finding them. Maybe what’s needed is for the genre to get down to one magazine. Refocus the field of science fiction. And since the magazine publishing and distribution industry is so screwed, maybe the short story market should move to a different format. I’d suggest a trade or mass market paperback series published quarterly to start with edited by team of editors to get the very best and diverse kind of story. Tie the publication to a web 2.0 site where readers can discuss the stories and vote on them and interact with the writers. Also get Audible.com to do an unabridged audio edition of the book each quarter, as well as publishing it in the Kindle, Sony and all the Fictionwise ebook editions.

I think we need a modern day Hugo Gernsback or John W. Campbell to reinvent the field of science fiction. The number one goal should be to eliminate fantasy stories from the mix and develop real science fiction stories. The next goal should be to find well written engaging stories that focus on good characterization. Publish stories that grab people and make them keep reading, and not stories that you have to struggle to the end for a payoff.

Science fiction has reinvented itself many times. I lament the passing of every genre magazine and worry about F&SF, Asimov’s and Analog, the old big three that now have circulations that are a tiny fraction of their glory days. I can’t tell if this trend means science fiction itself is dying. It does feel like we’re on the downward slope of the right hand side of the bell curve.

I’m a member of two online SF book clubs that focus on the classics of science fiction, and like many of the folk who left comments on Slashdot, feel SF golden age was really from 1950-1970, the Heinlein-Asimov-Clarke era. I think there was another bulge of SF fans with a generation that grew up with writers like Vernor Vinge, Dan Simmons, Neil Stephenson, David Brin, Greg Bear, John Varley, etc. And currently there’s a ripple bulge with writers like John Scalzi, Charles Stross, Greg Egan, Stephen Baxter, Alastair Reynolds and others.

Whether SF will ever have another golden age with over hundred thousand people subscribing to its top SF magazine is hard to predict. Like I said, with a new Campbell or Gernsback discovering a new team of Heinlein-Asimov-Clarke level writers it could happen.

JWH – 2/1/9

Pulp Fiction

Long ago, before Quentin Tarantino’s great film, before I was born in 1951, before television, there was pulp fiction. It was called pulp fiction because of the grade of paper the stories were printed on was called pulp, and a whole entertainment industry was built around selling magazines with short stories and serialized novels wrapped in crude color reproductions of what is now called pulp art.

When I was young I often met older science fiction fans that collected these magazines, but surely, most of the kids of the generation before me, who grew up loving to read pulp fiction, must be very old, if still living, and the pulp fiction generation surely must be dying out. Yet, over at Fantasy & Science Fiction they are running an article, “The New Nostalgia: The Classic Pulp Story Revival” by Dave Truesdale that chronicles how several small press publishers are keeping the pulp fiction tradition alive with quality hardbound reprints. This article is well worth reading on many levels because it renews memories of a few old authors and their best stories and informs about the sub-culture of the small press publishing.

Pulp fiction has also been kept alive by the legacy of comic books and their impact on the movies with all the classic super heroes being reinvented every year, and reoccurring pulp action films like the Indiana Jones series or the remake of King Kong. Comics are the direct descendants of pulp magazines that featured cruder art and stories for the younger readers on the same pulp paper. Pulp fiction was never literary but a few fine writers like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler came out of the tradition. Most of the prose was purple and all action, and aimed at the poorly educated, often featuring very politically incorrect attitudes about race, gender, ethnic groups, and foreigners. Society and the well bred looked down on the lowly pulp fiction fan.

Evidently, old pulp fiction is finding new younger readers through the popularity of action movies, reprints and inherited nostalgia. When I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s much of the best pulp fiction, including mysteries, westerns, science fiction, adventure, spy, thrillers and other genres were reprinted as cheap paperbacks for 25 and 35 cents, but now the buy-in price are $40 deluxe volumes.

There was always a tremendous vitality to pulp fiction, which explained why titles included words like astounding, thrilling, amazing, wonder, adventure, fantastic, and that wink-wink keyword, spicy. Science fiction really is a child of pulp fiction, and I think many readers hated the change that the New Wave brought to the genre during the 1960s, where emerging writers tried to force science fiction out of the gutter and into the classroom where the revolutionaries wanted it to wear literary robes. Today science fiction is often represented in the minds of the public at large by Star Trek and Star Wars, but those stories owe a lot to two pulp fiction superstars: E. E. “Doc” Smith and Edward Hamilton.

If you want to sample classic science fiction pulp stories, and not spend too much money, I recommend tracking down copies of two anthologies: Before the Golden Age edited by Isaac Asimov and Adventures in Time and Space edited by Raymond J. Healy and J. Francis McComas. These books collect some of the best SF short stories from 1931-1945. You can find both at ABEBooks.com, but watch out, both fat original hardback anthologies were often reprinted as multi-volume paperback books, and it would be worth your while to use the advance search and specify hardback editions, thus saving you on total costs and postage. These two books will give you a great education about the foundation of science fiction.

The URLs linked to these titles also give you table of contents for the stories which if you are really hoarding your gasoline dollars might find on the web for free. Now, as you read the stories, consider these issues:

One, are they still fun to read? Are they as fun as reading Harry Potter or any of your other current favorite writers? Second, do the ideas seem stupid, in the light of modern knowledge? Third, do you notice why I call them politically incorrect? Fourth, can you tell the difference between pulp fiction writing and modern MFA writing (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao), or even modern genre writing (Charlie Stross and John Scalzi)? Fifth, are these stories worth preserving? Sixth, are they worth your reading time over reading newer stories?

All fiction from 1900-1950 is thinning out fast in our collective memories, and few stories from that era get reprinted. I’m not just talking about pulp fiction. If you can, find a copy of Best American Short Stories from before 1950 and some original pulp magazines. Most of the contents from either will never have seen print since the original publications. The small presses that are reprinting classic pulp fiction stories, are really just rescuing one story in a thousand, maybe one in ten thousand.

Looking at the periods 1800-1850 and 1850-1900, only the rarest of stories are still read by modern readers. Baby boomers can remember the famous books they read from 1950-2000, but how many of the following generations know about those best selling titles? My guess is the pulp fiction nostalgia is for the boomers who can remember reading pulp fiction from its first generation of reprints. I would imagine, out of all the genres only a handful of novels will become classics, like The Maltese Falcon, Tarzan of the Apes, Conan the Barbarian, and Riders of the Purple Sage. But how many kids under 16 discover these tales?

I occasionally enjoy reading an old pulp story and appreciate these small press publishers bringing back old favorites by Leigh Brackett, C. L. Moore, Robert E. Howard and Jack Williamson that I first discovered in used editions of Ace Doubles. I think my identity is partly based on pulp fiction, and I feel I help keep these old friends alive by continuing to read them. I know all of my generation and the stories we loved will soon pass on and be forgotten, but it’s pleasant to think a few of the stories will survive and future generations will enjoy them and wonder about their fans.

Jim

Free Science Fiction

It’s a great time to be poor, tight or miserly because there’s lots of free science fiction offerings on the Internet. Heinlein was wrong about that free lunch deal. Just subscribing to two web sites, SF Site and SFF Audio via RSS feeds will keep you informed of more good free SF&F reading and listening than you can handle, even if you’re out-of-work or out-of-school. All you’ve got to do is read the regular posts and these sites will spot the goodies for you.

Hell, a couple months ago Tor let people sign up to get 12 free ebooks novels from them, in PDF, HTML and unprotected Mobi formats, which is good for the new Amazon Kindle. I socked them away for a rainy day when I want to try out some new authors, but I especially appreciated getting a copy of Old Man’s War by John Scalzi because I already bought and listened to it on audio. Audio books are the best way to fully experience a book, in my humble opinion, but audio books are not so good for reference and study. eBooks are great for snagging a quote. I wished all paper editions came with ebook editions for reviewing purposes – but I digress from my main topic.

I don’t know why there is so much free reading and listening on the Internet. I do know there’s a theory that a certain amount of free promotion helps with sales, but currently there’s enough free promotion to exist completely without buying.

Some writers like Cory Doctorow even offer their latest novels for free, such as his new book Little Brother. Read the intro in the HTML edition to see just how far his generosity extends. I’m waiting for the audio edition to show up on Audible.com to buy. I’ve read Cory’s stories in anthologies I’ve bought, but his name has stuck with me because of his free work on the Internet. Finding his brilliant “Anda’s Game” made me remember his name as a standout writer. The same thing happened with Charlie Stross, because of free stories on the net, or stories in anthologies, I’ve gone on to buy his books.

A good way to dip your toe in the free story waters is to read BestScienceFictionStories.com where Rusty reviews standout SF short stories, many of which are on the net to read for free and Rusty provides the links. He even offers a guide to finding free stories, “Nine Secrets For Finding Your Favorite Science Fiction Short Stories Online,” as well as “The 10 Best Web Sites for Free Online Science Fiction Short Stories.” When I was a kid I had to haunt musty used bookshops all over Miami to find classic SF stories to read. Now story hunting is as easy as a mouse-click away.

And these stories aren’t submissions from would-be writers, or trunk stories from published writers, but award winning stories, stories that have appeared in best-of-the-year anthologies, and stories that have appeared on lists like The Top 100 Sci-Fi Short Stories.

For the last decade I’ve been doing far more listening to fiction than reading. At first audio science fiction was rare, but in the last year there has been a boom in SF&F for your ears, including free productions. At first free audio featured amateur readers no better than the best student you’d hear when we had to take turns reading aloud in class. The best professional readers today act out audio books in performances I often find better than those I see in Oscar winning movies. Free audio productions have a long way to go to compete with professional productions, but surprisingly, they are evolving fast!

The granddaddy of SF audio is probably Escape Pod, currently broadcasting it’s 159th episode. You no longer have to mess with podcast software to listen to the shows, so go sample its stories with the on-page sound controls. The production quality is now equal or better to many of the commercial stories I buy at Audible.com. Escape Pod offers a lot of quality for free. Again, these aren’t just third-tier stories, but stories that have appeared in professional story magazines like F&SF, Asimov’s, Interzone, Realms of Fantasy, Strange Horizons, Jim Baen’s Universe, and other magazines that SF writers love to sell to.

Also, the above linked magazine sites often offer free stories to read from their for-sale magazines, especially during award times when they want to promote their nominated authors. Just following the links on this page will keep you up-to-date with what’s going in with the genre of science fiction. You’ll learn who the famous authors are as well as the new and upcoming writers.

Free audio book novels are showing up but most of them are read by amateur readers, something not to my taste, but if you like free and are patient and forgiving, you might find a lot in these offerings. I expect this category to grow in the future as amateur actors discover audio books are a way to audition their talents and get their names known. Digital recording equipment is relatively cheap, but producing a ten-twenty hour novel is quite a commitment, but they are appearing. Keep an eye on SFF Audio.

And if you want to know about classic science fiction, visit Feedbooks, where you can get ebook novels for free. Their Science Fiction page offer books from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to George Orwell’s 1984 to Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, the new book mentioned above. And all the books are nicely formatted for a wide range of electronic reading devices. Teachers and professors could offer a class on science fiction and their students could get all their textbooks for free on this site.

I don’t understand how all this generosity works. It’s a hippie dream – a commie’s philosophy come true. Feedbooks doesn’t even have ads on their page. It’s a mystery, like WordPress, how do they make their money? There are even radio magazine shows like StarShipSofa.com, that appear to be the work of energetic individuals unmotivated by capitalism. It’s like the old days of fanzines, creating a new generation of online fandom, fashioning an audio genzine.

Like I said, it doesn’t take much to join this community, just add the RSS feeds from SF Signal and SFF Audio. Having online access allows web surfers to join a never ending science fiction convention, again for free, without having to buy a membership or pay for hotels, cabs and airline tickets. If you follow SFF Audio, links to panels and con speeches often show up too. And again, it’s all for free.

This makes me wonder about the financial health of the little audio book publishers and small press publishers. Is all this free competition hurting them? SF Signal and SFF Audio also link to these commercial sites, so if you want to see them succeed, patronize their online stores too. The commercial SF&F magazines have been losing paid readership for years – is the Internet partially at fault – either through free offerings, or just a diversion from old fashion pastimes? It’s all too hard to know, but we do know there were a lot more short story magazines on sale at newsstands before the advent of television, again a system that offered content for free, usually paid for by ads.

The science fiction short story may go the way of poetry – moving out of the realm of commercial sales to exist and be supported by love of the art form and its fans. I hate to see that, but I sure do love the fact that the art form of the science fiction short story seems to be growing on the Internet.

Learning to adapt to this free medium takes a bit of training and equipment. Listening to audio via on-page controls is the easiest way to join in. Just play a story and kick back. They are nice company for doing the dishes, or pursuing hobbies like modeling or knitting. Next up is learning to subscribe to podcasts in iTunes and take the stories with you when you run or walk. If you like to read on your phone, PDA, notebook computer or ebook reader, find you favorite reading software and learn where the best places that offer that format for free. I’ve barely touched on the free sites available.

Like I said, I mostly listening to books because I’ve found so many ways to integrate audio books into my routine. It’s quite wonderful to be walking down the street while classic novels are whispered into my ear.

Jim