Audible Badges and the Keymaster

In the slightly less than four days since I finished the blog post before this one (Audible Badge Collection Revisited) a flood of email messages from other Audible Listeners (that's what we call ourselves and each other it seems - as Audible Listeners) has illustrated for me just how popular the service has become and, what is more, how intense the feelings are that exist within it.  I received a lot of email - a LOT of email - almost all of which was both supportive and equally of note, demanded to know what my personal Badge Count is?  With details?!

This Audible dot Com Thingy

As the exclusive supplier of audio book content to both iTunes and Amazon the folks at Audible have something like a monopoly (but not really) in the area of digital books and audio entertainment (not including music and/or songs) whose primary delivery system is the Internet via the World Wide Web -- the notion that a community, or perhaps a community of sub-communities would be a better take on the matter? Well, either way, the fact that such a community has sprung into existence really is not all that surprising. 

This being a very busy time of year for me, I cannot indulge in the philosophical aspects inherent in developments such as this, despite the fact that they practically beg for me to do so.  If ideas could talk this one would be saying "Explore me!  Delve into the quirky and yet mind-boggling fact of my existence!  Find the humor in me, it is there!  Really it is!  Please?"

But they cannot - and I wouldn't have the time anyway, in fact the best that I can do is jot down these notes and the briefest of observations as I attempt to fulfill the requests that have been made of me, and share with you the details of my Audible Badges since this appears to be a rather urgently important matter some of you...

Just be thankful that I am not Stephen King.  

I recently sent an email to the human interface at his publisher to whom one sends such requests  asking for just three minutes of his time to ask and obtain the answer to the questions: "How important would you say that your experiment in publishing your recent book exclusively online was?"  And "What did you learn from the experience?"

Those two questions are central to the issue that I will be examining in a column I am working on that explores the whole issue of PoD and online publishing. 

It has been suggested that we, each of us, have a book floating around in our heads waiting to be written, and but for the lack of a publisher to take our project on would all of us be published authors...

Of course Stephen King has never heard of me and I have no doubt was completely unaware of the exchange between myself and some faceless drone at his publisher whose job is to read the email that is submitted by that form on his "official" web page on their website. 

The fact that this particular drone has allowed their "power" to rush to their head and so chose to deny me in so transparently obvious and passive-aggressive a manner, well, I try not to take that sort of thing personally.  I understand - he is so busy he just cannot find the time to answer those questions.  Ever.

I am just saying that you should be happy I am not the Kingster - or more to the point, you should be happy that I do not have such a tool screening my email; if I did we would not be having this little experience that we are having, and where was I?

Oh yes!  My Audible Badges!

The Audible Listener Badge Collection has become something of a point of pride and, for many audiobook fans, a symbol of accomplishment...  For this Audible Listener the badges represent pleasurable hours spent multi-tasking while he earned his TCoB Badge!  Yeah, I've pooped in the woods...

The Official Badge Count (and information)
of Audible Listener CM Boots-Faubert

So the email that I have been receiving from readers has included their present badge status and nicely and politely requested that I share mine.  Since it was nice and polite for the most part, I figure what they heck, why not?  So here is my Audible Listener Badge Collection Status as of 0600 GMT -5 on 31 July 2013:

1. Stenographer - Silver
2. Social Butterfly - Silver
3. Audible Obsessed - None
4. Weekend Warrior - Gold
5. Repeat Listener - Silver
6. All Nighter - Diamond
7. Marathoner - None
8. Undecider - Silver
9. Flash 80 - None
10. High Noon - Diamond
11. Binge Listener - Silver
12. 7 Day Stretch - Silver
13. Procrastinator - None
14. The Stack - Silver
15. Mount Everest - None

Thanks for your email, thanks for reading the blog, and thank you for reading the paper!

Cheers!

C