When we are generating our distribution masters should we use the same bit rate for all of our books?

Generally speaking, organizations will want their books to fit onto 1 CD whenever possible, facilitating storage, handling and ease of use by the reader, and, keeping costs down.

An organization may wish to set a firm standard for the bit rate used for compressing its distribution masters. In this way the bit rate would be consistent.

Alternatively, an organization may elect to use only as much compression as is required to get the Distribution master (and and therefore the distribution copies) onto 1 CD.

Smaller books can be compressed at a bit rate as high as 160, and the audio quality is very good. The bigger the book the greater the compression (lower the bit rate) required to get it onto 1 CD.

Note that compression rates lower than 160 (numbers greater than 160 in the compression rate drop down menu) may not be supported by all playback software or hardware devices and should therefore not be used.