Dear Brian,

Six days ago we decided to invite our listeners to stock up on summer audio at the special price of $9.95 per title. The response was literally overwhelming. We have long talked about the advantages of the Audible system, among them the fact that our digital distribution methods prevent us from ever being out of stock, but in recent days our Web site has slowed to unacceptable levels as a tremendous number of customers all sought to download titles at once.

Many customers contacted customer service, which in turn created extensive, and similarly unacceptable, waiting times. The sale has ended, but yesterday's release of Bill Clinton reading his new book has kept traffic at all-time highs. This unfortunate situation is temporary, but I do want to apologize for sluggish Web site speed and a lapse in timely customer service.

We will quickly increase the number of customer service staff members, and everyone who works at Audible, including our executive team, will be pitching in to handle your calls. We are also increasing our server capacity to improve the response time of our Web site. We will have these updated servers up and running very soon, which will allow our busy customers to move through our site quickly.

Please allow me to apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you in recent days. Our customers have the right to expect top notch service, and we are working hard to make sure we meet their expectations.

Sincerely,

Don Katz Founder and CEO