When it was released on July 20th, The 9/11 Commission Report immediately dominated the news. The 9/11 Commission Report Executive Summary, a nicely written, succinct overview, was issued with the report. The professed mission of the members of the commission — to educate the public — coincided with the main goal of Pocket University, and production of the Summary was immediately started. It was released on Monday, August 2nd.

The book was a runaway bestseller and sales remain strong. But there will be many who find a 500 page report daunting. That is our market: the Executive Summary in audio is an easy way to get the essence of the report, without having to read the book. The commission has been telling all who will listen that the report and its recommendations could save American lives. It is in that spirit that we made the Summary affordable . At $8.95 it costs much less than the typical one-CD audiobook. Borders and Barnes & Noble have placed orders and copies should be in their stores before September 1st. It is available now at Amazon.com as well as on our website, www.pocketu.com. Our marketing efforts are now focused on getting it to more outlets and letting the public know it is available.

Realizing that libraries (the main market of Sound Room Publishers) would want the complete 9/11 Commission Report, we made plans to produce it as well. To provide variety in the narration and to speed up the production, different narrators were assigned to each chapter. We approached some of the best narrators in the business, many of whom had received prestigious awards: all were anxious to be a part of the project. (Click here for profiles of some of the narrators.)

There will be a two-volume version sold to the public, possibly in stores, but we expect most sales to be made at our website. We are also publishing a library edition in more durable packaging. We expect that most of the sales of the complete report will be to be to libraries, public and academic. Other markets would include schools and the US Government.

Pocket University is a concept that Joseph Langenfeld, the president and founder of Sound Room Publishers, had been interested in for a number of years. In July of 2004 the imprint was started with just two titles, THE YEAR OF THE BLOG: Blogs, Politics and the 2004 Election, a brief history of blogs and how they are influencing politics, and The Name of the Enemy: JIHADI SALAFIS, an in-depth look Islamic fundamentalism and those who embrace terrorism.

Pocket University is billed as "a convenient way to learn." It will publish nonfiction titles that explain topics of interest, everything from Hip Hop to Nanotechnology. Most of the titles will be relatively short, one to two hours in length. Pocket University is very much in the tradition of lyceums — clubs that sponsored lectures on science, politics, history, etc., — which were very popular in America in the 1830s. Most of the writings will be new, written by scholars and journalists and commissioned by Pocket U.

Sound Room Publishers began publishing audiobooks under the imprint Commuters Library in 1991 with the release of short stories by Anton Chekhov and James Joyce. These titles were followed by novellas and collected stories by Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe and other great authors and, after that, an unabridged King James version of the Bible, writings of Abraham Lincoln and other figures from American history, and unabridged Classics such as The Iliad, The Odyssey and Pride and Prejudice. The quality of the narration was always high and Publishers Weekly awarded Commuters Library titles Audio Best of the Year six years in a row. In 2001 the name of the imprint was changed to InAudio. A catalog can be found on the website, www.inaudio.biz.