My name is Alan Twigg and this is a picture of me with my wife Susanne and my two children Tom and Lea.

Together with my great partner, James O'Nions, I'm responsible for running this exciting audio book store.

I have always loved listening to audio programs and books, for me they provide an ideal way of learning, as well as being a fantastic companion in so many situations. I got my first audio book when I was about 8 years old. It was called Sparky and the Magic Piano. It was a Christmas present from my mother and I listened to it over and over again. As I entered my teenage years, the Walkman was beginning to make its mark and I remember listening to the War of the Worlds as I did my newspaper round.

Over the years I must have listened to hundreds of audio books from humour to fiction and from business titles to self-help. At the age of 28, however, audio books started to play an even more important role in my life. You see it was while I was on holiday in Tenerife that I met my wife Susanne. She is German and I am English. As our relationship flourished I started listening to language-learning audio books to improve my German. Aren't audio books just wonderful! I was able to learn German while driving to work, going for a walk or relaxing on the beach. Perfect.

Publishing my own audio books - Playtime-Books is born

My mother, Ann Twigg, is absolutely wonderful with small children. She has always enjoyed writing and has a brilliant imagination. In 2004 we met up to discuss producing our very own children's audio books. Within just 8 weeks the first three stories (Grumpy Grandad 1, 2 and 3) had been written. We then set about recording our stories and having illustrations created for our CDs and our website (www.playtime-books.com). We received some wonderful feedback from mothers and fathers, who told us how much their children had enjoyed our stories.

Our 13 Playtime-Books stories are also available on the Talking-Book-Store.com;

We also had all of our Playtime-Books stories translated into German and now they are availalbe in two languages.

Furthermore, I have also written and produced two audio books of my own:

"Raising Children Bilingually" and "Search Engine Optimization".

If you are interested in writing, recording and publishing your own audio books, you are welcome to contact me if you think I might be able to help.

Meeting James...

James O'Nions is my business partner and co-owner of the Talking-Book-Store.com. James is passionate about the internet and business. He has been involved in the internet business world since 1998 when he was asked to construct an intranet site for Northern Telecom (NORTEL) in the UK. It was a great environment in which to hone his technical skills and gave him a solid foundation for his future online endeavours. Since then he has been involved in many online projects. This has been two fold as he own his own online businesses but also act as an SEO consultant for other companies too.

One of James' projects has been the development of a great online stuttering resource called the Stuttering and Stammering Centre which is run by Steve Hill, known across the world for helping people who suffer from a stammer or stutter.

In January I was surfing the net when I came across this stuttering site and decided to link to it from Playtime-Books.com. Steve Hill then got in touch with me to tell me about James, who had just gone into business with the Talking Bookstore.

After talking on the telephone and discovering that we had a lot in common, we decided to meet up in the English seaside town of Torquay in January. We hit it off immediately and decided to become partners in the Talking-Book-Store.com project. Over the past nine months we have been working extremely hard to realize our dream of making the talking-book-store.com the number one resource for downloadable audio books on the internet.

The future for audio books

We believe that the demand for audio books is about to explode. They are the ideal medium for today's and tomorrow's world. The variety and subject depth alone on this store is huge. Regardless of your interests, you will find an audio title for you.

James and I are delighted that you have visited our store and hope that you will have lots of fun browsing our titles, listening to the extracts and choosing the right book for your particular tastes. From a fellow listener, I would like to wish you many pleasant hours listening to your favourite audio titles.
 

All the best to you,

Alan Twigg and James O'Nions

Talking-Book-Store.com