so, i admit it: i’m an iTunes Music Store whore. i just love being able to go online and buy albums for $10. and i can do it whenever i want, so if at 3 AM i suddenly decide i need to hear hank williams or whatever, i can just go get it, and poof! i have hank williams. it rocks.

i also like listening to audiobooks. they’re nifty, and muy convenient. but they’re also expensive — for example, the audiobook version of Stephen King’s The Wolves of the Calla, the Dark Tower V, was $65 (compare to the hardback, which was something like $24.95).

so, since john made me listen to David Sedaris’ Live at Carnegie Hall at the farm a couple weekends ago, and i discovered it was actually pretty funny, then i finished my book and then whipped through his copy of Me Talk Pretty One Day, which was also pretty funny, when i was browsing iTunes a couple of days ago and saw that they had the unabridged version of his new book, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, for only $16.95, i was like, yeah! i’ll totally buy that! so i did.

but there’s a problem.

To: iTunes Feedback
From: sabrina downard
Subject: Audiobook format badly designed
Feedback Type: Design/Ease of Use

Hello. I recently purchased and downloaded David Sedaris’ “Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim” unabridged audiobook from the iTunes Music Store, which was my first attempt at buying an audiobook from the iTunes Music Store. Although audiobooks on CD are horribly expensive, I wish I had bought the actual disks in this instance — the David Sedaris book is split into only three tracks! Obviously, whoever made that decision has never listened to an audiobook in his or her life. Most audiobooks on CD that I buy come with many tracks per disk, at least 20 but at least one of them has over 60. Why? Because it’s FREAKING ANNOYING to lose your place! Do you have any idea how annoying it’s going to be to listen for a bit, turn off the iPod, then try and listen again later at home on my laptop, when I have to fast-forward to guess where my place was?

Not to mention the tracks are of such long durations that they’re too long to burn to CD, making the book useless for listening to in my car.

And of course the Music Store GUI doesn’t tell you how many tracks the book is, so I couldn’t have known about this ahead of time.

I’m highly disappointed. All of my iTunes music purchases have been very smooth, but this, I wish I had just gone to the store. Despite your way, way better pricing, I won’t be purchasing any more audiobooks from iTunes until such time as (a) I can see how many tracks there are *before* purchasing (COME ON! How lame is that?! I might understand not wanting to sell audiobooks on a track basis, but this is basic information that you ought to make available pre-purchase), and (b) the content is split into tracks of much shorter duration, making it actually usable.

I look forward to your response.

Dear Customer:

Thank you for your feedback regarding iTunes. We cannot respond to you personally, but please know that your message has been received and will be reviewed by the iTunes Feedback Team. If we need to follow up with you on your ideas for improving iTunes, we will contact you directly.

If you wrote to us for technical support with iTunes, we need to inform you that the Feedback Team cannot address these types of queries. For available support options, please visit the iTunes support page.

We appreciate your assistance in making iTunes better.

iTunes Feedback Team
Apple

bah.