Download Audio Books and you suddenly have tons of time to read – or to listen, at least! While I'm a huge supporter of the written word, because I love the smell and texture of books, there are occasions when a Kindle book works better for me, or when I download audio books so I can keep my hands free. They come in handy so often, like on those endless car rides where the radio sucks, you're tired of all your CDs, and you don't really want to talk. I've put together a list of the best places to download audio books online, some of which have free services!
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It was tempting to begin this list with Amazon as the best place to download audio books but, as you'll see, it's further down the list. I like the Audio Bookstore best because of its versatility (it promises compatibility with more than 500 devices), its selection (you download more than 85,000 audio books, and there are CDs to buy as well), and its prices. Typically, right now, it costs about $7.49 to download an audio book!
With a name like that, there was no way I couldn't include this site. Now, it's not perfect, but when you find a free site, you can't always expect perfection. For one thing, this only applies to books under public domain – and hey, that's cool. You can get a lot of classics, and there's an impressive selection. What bothers me is that it's only available in certain formats – you can only download books here if you've got an iPad, an iTunes account, or an mp3 player. Sure, that's most of us these days, but it's still pretty limited.
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This is another place to download audio books where you have to pay – but, again, if you sign up with an account, most books are only $7.49, and many of them are free. Like The Audio Bookstore, the collection spans more than 85,000 selections and the books will work for all major lit-tronics, as well as for a wide variety of more obscure mp3 players. It also keeps up an impressive list of new selections.
As always, Amazon is a go-to bookstore, there are tons of choices, and you know it will work for Kindle. The problem? I personally don't know if it an audio book will work for you if you have a Nook or something instead. Plus, honestly, Amazon's prices don't impress me. I love their selection so much! But the thing is, Audible is an Amazon company – yet its prices are ridiculously lower. Boo, Amazon!
Here's yet another site where you can download audio books for free, under public domain rule. The nice thing about this site is that there are also lessons in languages, not to mention a number of free courses on offer. Plus, there are tons of poetry podcasts, which I love to listen to whenever I get the chance!
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This site is great. It has fewer titles than many of the others, and you have to sign up, but you can get credits, which are used to buy the books you want to listen to. For the most part, one credit is good for one book. You can also choose your format easily, which is always a plus.
eMusic has a ton of great books in all kinds of different genres, including poetry and erotica. I love this places for its variety. It works on a credit system as well, making it really inexpensive to download audio books. It's also quite detailed, with synopses and information about size and actual length of the audio book.
Finally, I've got everyone's favorite eBook site! PG has recently gotten their audio book category up and running, and it's marvelous! Again, the majority of the books you can get here are classics under public domain, but that's still a lot of classics. It's also nice to be able to choose formatting in so many different languages!
When you download audio books, you can enjoy literature, fiction, and nonfiction when you might not otherwise be able to do so. I know some people just can't find time to read, even though they really want to. You can download audio books online instead, and install them into your iPad, iPod, Kindle, or even your computer, where you can then burn them onto a CD. And I promise, just because you download audio books sometimes, doesn't mean you're an enemy to books. How do you prefer to get your lit-fix – through actual books, electronics, or audibly?
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