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I found that i could get one credit and i also found that i did not have the book (I thought i did), The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, in audiobook form. So i went to the page and it was big problem for me. I downloaded the program and installed it on my windows 7 pc. But it did not start to download anything , after clicking around i found a second program had to be downloaded so i did. The first file, that that program downloaded was very strange i thought but i figured it was some little file to help download the whole file. It was evidently not a little file it was the whole book. Then i saw that i had to make the program recognise my windows 7,5 phone. But that did not work. It said i did not have a phone attached to my pc. So i looked a little more and found out that to play the audiobook on my phone i had to download an app and install that. And i was directed to the microsoft app store, where i am not registered. But then i quit. I do not have to install jet another program on my phone to listen to my audio books or music, when the mediaplayer works just fine. So from now on until they change the format of the files i am going to buy my audiobooks from emusic.com. As far as i know they still sell there audiobooks in mp3 format.
(Sorry about any spelling and wording error)

August 2011. I had heaps of problems, setting it up, finally got it to work! Lucky I read your blog, and am an IT professional, if I wasn't I would have given up, not good enough Audible write better software.
thanks for the blog though.

I was a member of Audible from 2001 - 2006. Technical problems and aggravations were business as usual with Audible. I'm an executive at web application software company - not an unsophisticated user. Yes, I could fight through it but it was always a hair puller and a time suck. I stuck with it because unfortunately it was the best solution I could find at the time. As other options have now come along, I have switched. I have heard from others that audible is still not as smooth as it could be.

My god if you can't figure out how to download an audio book to your iPhone/iPod You shouldn't own one.
I've been with audible with a two book a month membership since 2002. I've talked to their customer support and have recieved excellent support in the past.
For example, I purchased a book once and after five minutes decide the audio quality wasn't up to standard. They returned my credit back even though I could have been lying and read the book.
don't get me wrong, I don't blindly believe in them and I've had my scares too on the past when I get a little paranoid and download and burn all of my purchases on DVD. But I've never had a problem. They keep adding support for new devices. I started out with an old ipaq and found that listening to books on it was the most useful thing to do with it. I went through the sorrow of getting a car without casette which allowed you to connect the device to your cars speakers and through the discovery of radio devices that broadcast to your cars radio. All of this, including around 10 PCs, 7 audio devices, and I've never had a problem a quick call to support (or sometimes the online help people) couldn't fix.
There's a good reason Amazon decided they were worth purchasing.
To those who have issues with downloading/setting up for the first time I say, try to understand the new process, it's worth it.

I just had to re-install Vista on my computer, then Itunes, now I can't listen to the three books I bought from Audible, because I don't have internet access at home. So I emailed customer support to see if there was anything that I could do. The response that I got was basically a rehash of information I already had. It seems like the person didn't even read to see what my problem was in the first place.

As far as your books being 'permanently' saved, I've tried several times to log back in, and it won't let me,maybe because I don't currently have a contract with them, who knows...

I understand why they want you to allow Itunes via the 'net...I'd just like for them to have an alternative for those of us who can't afford internet access in the home.

(And yes, I do know that an alternative would be actual books, of which I have many...:))

I must admit I am VERY DISAPPOINTED in Audible that they have not addressed the issue of an app to enable direct access to my Audible library for the iPhone.

Over two years ago, I was able to directly listen to my library wirelessly with my Palm Treo. I have had my iPhone for almost two years an still cannot do so. I'm left to download the WSJ read every morning and if I run out of time, I'm out of luck.

Cannot understand what is the issue here and why have they have not addressed it in the past two years.

I just found out that a lot of my credits expired. I did not know that they can expire my fully paid for credits. I called customer support and closed my account. Does anyone on the earth hear about this kind of things before? I would not recommend that anyone sign up to even purchase a single book from audible. I should have read the custom review first before I tried Audible.com.

I've been using Audible for a couple years and just got an iPhone, (previous devices were non-mac products) and while I found Audible manager clunky, it worked acceptably. However.. after several hours of search and reading through Audibles knowledge base, this was the first place I saw the playist thing mentioned. It took about two seconds to get it working. Audible- come on.

Hopefully someone here can help since Audible's support won't be back until after Memorial Day. I bought a large audio book and part 1 downloaded fine. But I have no idea how to get part 2 downloaded (and when I bought the book had no idea it would come in two parts). Any pointers as to how to locate part 2 so I can download it? I've checked "my account" and there's no clues about this, only that I bought the book.

Thanks, Pizzaiolo

Audible is the simplest interface imaginable. Every book you buy is permanently stored in your online library, you simply change your account settings to reflect the current computers you own or the listening devices you use.

It's really that simple.

I know people want to whine about DRM and how fascist it is and how it's a pain and blah blah blah.

But I value the works of these authors and narrators, and would not want their efforts dissolved in the hazy scum cloud of filesharing.

So yes, I don't mind the DRM. I also don't mind paying for Audible, because the prices are quite reasonable.

I've been an audible customer for a long, long time (at least 7 years now I think). I do a lot of driving in my job and enjoy listening to the audiobooks. In that time I have seen audible update their software only once and it was better BEFORE the update. The software is buggy, doesn't play right, it always skips during playback (on my windows mobile device), forgets what book I'm playing after I turn it off. Remembers bookmarks for books I haven't had on the device in months (i.e. I load a book into it and it says I've already listened to the whole thing. I have to rewind back to the start).

I love the audible service. I love being able to download the books I want in the morning and walk out the door listening to one of my favorite authors. But their software sucks. They need to hire some real programmers to write new software and keep it up to date.

I completely agree. I joined audible for the Ricky Gervais series. Turns out I cant burn to CD for my car unless I have Nero 8 ultra - yeah right, I'm goin to buy that just for this purpose (Ive got Nero but its not the expensive high spec version). Yesterday I bought an Ipod Touch and cant even find that as a device. I emailed Audible and told them straight that it was time to get into the 21st century and they have lost my possibly lucrative business. Being told to donwload yet another (very poor) piece of audible software so I can transfer to my Ipod is a step too far.

DRM doesnt work, there are hacks every time it revises. The DVD industry tried and failed to prevent copying and they are still going strong.

What annoys me is this, you pay for the track then you cant use it how you want. The theory is one person buys it, then gives it to everyone for free if it didnt have DRM. I wont do that - if I pay for something I cant get from Torrents then no one else is getting it.

DRM doesnt work, and any company that promote it in their products needs a wide steer. Ive bought the podcats from Itunes instead - yes some are still DRMd (it looks like they are going to drop it on standard Itunes) but at least it bloody works and transfers to my Ipod. Easy.

On a whim last night, I really missed a Deepak Chopra program I had on cassette. I don't own a cassette player anymore and decided to pay for a legal copy in digital format. Amazon didn't have it in download format, so I didn't find many options; only Audible.com and Simply Audiobooks. The 'price' seemed better at Audible, so I went with it.

First, I found their membership programs to be confusing but I didn't let it stop me. If only I had known what I was soon in for, I would have gone elsewhere.

They managed to charge my card instantly, but when I was introduced to 'My Library' I had to think hard what to do next. I don't have an I-Pod, I just wanted an MP3 or such. It seemed obvious that the thing to do was click 'Download' next to the audio I had added to my library, but when I did so, it installed a download manager (yet another crappy implementation on par with microsoft's own) and AudibleManager, which is the gatekeeper for the DRS functionality. Thing is, nothing ever downloaded, there was no intro or instructions, and clicking 'help' did nothing at all.

I thought I should wait a while but next morning, there is still nothing in my library on my computer.

I was also perplexed how difficult it was to get customer service via email; I finally found a web form to submit a trouble ticket, in which I explained that clicking 'download' next to the audiobook in my library (on the website) only downloads the manager program again.

I got a robotic response by email late this afternoon that did not address why my download did not arrive. I responded to that emphasizing that the software is not working. The next robotic response read as if I never mentioned anything about the download failure. It just said download from 'my library' as before, ignoring the problem with the download. I've sent a third response, but now I wish I'd never tried them. I'm running XP, not some exotic OS flavor.

In my book, the service I'm getting is on par with Verizon (who is only worse because I can't get them to take my money!)

John, there's " " strings appearing in your posts, both in Google Reader and directly on the GL blog. I wonder if this is related to the posting software you're using?

I experienced the same frustrations when I first started using audible, but if you listen to a lot on tape while you're working out or travelling, they have a nice selection, and I haven't found a better alternative yet.

My biggest complaint is that I can't lend anybody any of the books I listen to, so if I find one that's particularly good (the 10 faces of innovation comes to mind), I can tell my colleagues about it, but not share it with them. In practice, Audible's DRM is more restrictive than a book.