Catch the next chapter on your iPod

On a recent afternoon, Laura Wilson was speaking through a microphone to Oliver Wyman, who was on the other side of a pane of glass. 8220;Just hit Samaritan a little harder,8221; she said.

On a recent afternoon, Laura Wilson was speaking through a microphone to Oliver Wyman, who was on the other side of a pane of glass. 8220;Just hit Samaritan a little harder,8221; she said.

The two were in a recording studio near Times Square, producing the audio version of The Intellectual Devotional, a book of daily readings by David Kidder and Noah Oppenheim. Wilson, a producer with the Audio Renaissance publishing company, wanted Wyman, the reader, to give the word more stress in a sentence that began, 8220;Ethnic Samaritans, now living in northern Israel 8230;8221;

In a studio a few blocks away, another reader, Julie Fain Lawrence, was recording 8220;Simply Sexy8221;, a steamy Harlequin title by Carly Phillips. The two audiobooks might share little in content but the two share something unheard of a decade ago: they are both being released exclusively in a downloadable format.

When finished next month, they will be available only to mouse-clickers on Audible.com, one of several Internet sites featuring digital audio versions of books, periodicals and spoken-word content. Unlike onscreen e-books, which never quite caught on, downloadable audiobooks have taken off, driven by the explosive popularity of the iPod.

Going exclusively to a downloadable format saves publishers the expense of duplication, packaging and distribution. And the savings are often passed along. Audible8217;s full-price version of The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama costs 20.97 although various discounts are available, while the CD version retails for 29.95; undiscounted, unabridged versions of Michael Crichton8217;s Next are 34.97 by download and 49.95 on CD.

Because of lower production costs, titles that a few years ago would not have had audio versions at all are now being recorded; the decision is based largely on projected hardcover sales. And if they prove

popular enough as downloads, some of those productions will eventually be made into three-dimensional audiobooks.

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With virtually no promotional budgets, audiobook publishers rely on riding the coattails of the print version8217;s publicity, marketing and advertising. Book ads increasingly include 8220;Also available as an audiobook,8221; which audio publishers, protractedly battling the belief that listeners are readers8217; intellectual inferiors, consider a breakthrough.

8212;ANDREW ADAM NEWMAN / New York Times