Benefits Of Audiobooks
In my last blog post, I mentioned some of the reasons for turning ebooks into audiobooks. Reasons included your preferred learning style and also coping with a print disability. Additionally, many enjoy an audio presentation.
In this blog post, I will discuss a few additional advantages of audiobooks themselves. Since audiobooks can be expensive, I will show you how to get them at low or no cost. This expense is due to the high production cost of audiobooks: for example, narrators charge on the average $300 an hour. Audiobook publishers thus tend to focus on books that will be best sellers.
Good quality narration by professional readers and actors stands out as one of the advantages of audiobooks. This makes audiobook listening a pleasure. The average length of most audiobooks is about 10 hours, so you can listen to at least one audiobook a week. For students, it is possible to quickly and easily finish an assigned book or novel within a week.
Your public library
One of the great places to obtain audiobooks is your public library. Nowadays, almost all public libraries subscribe to an audiobook service. With these services, all you need is a library card number to sign in and start listening to free audiobooks. A great library audiobook service is Hoopla Digital. The Hoopla Digital catalog contains over 600,000 ebooks and 155,000 audiobooks. Hoopla Library Service does not issue due dates. That means no books are “on hold” because someone else has them checked out. So, as soon as you want to read an audiobook, it is available to you.
Two other very good library services are Libby by OverDrive and CloudLibrary. Although these latter two services offer fewer audiobooks, there is little overlap in their audiobook catalogs. This provides more choice to the listener. However, there are often hold periods when the audiobook has already been checked out by a patron of your library. Again, library services are free for those who have a library card. Also, books are automatically returned after the borrowing period is over. So, there is no fear of overdue fines.
LibriVox
LibriVox is a a free library service for audiobooks. LibriVox can be accessed online or through their app. Volunteers record books that are in the public domain. To date, LibriVox volunteers have recorded over 13,000 audiobooks. Generally, these recordings are fairly good. Now and again, one comes upon an exceptional volunteer reader. Keep in mind, that one narrator probably didn’t read the whole book. Often one book is done by several readers. These productions are not usually as high-quality as commercial ones. LibriVox audiobooks, however, are very enjoyable to listen to and are free! Since all their audiobooks are in the public domain, this means these books were published before 1929. This includes all of the works by Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, and Jane Austin.
National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled
If you have a print disability, you can easily qualify for the Library of Congress National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled. You simply need to have the application form certified by a specialist who can verify that you have a print disability. For example, a child’s special education teacher or school principal can sign the form. Or for others, simply having your family doctor sign the form is enough. This service is totally free. With your application you can receive an audiobook player, headphones, and access to over 115,000 audiobooks. Again, it is worth mentioning that the service is totally free to you. All of the books are narrated by either professional narrators or actors, so the presentations are very good. In recent years, a number of publishers have also provided commercially produced audiobooks to the National Library Service.
Amazon Audible
Of course, one of the biggest commercial audiobook services is Amazon Audible. There are basically two subscription plans: one plan is Audible Plus ($7.95 per month), and the other plan is Audible Premium ($14.95 per month). The Audible Plus allows you to listen to as many audiobooks as you would like per month from a catalog of over 20,000 audiobooks. When I look up a topic, I find at least one audiobook available in the Audible Plus catalog. For about eight dollars a month you can listen to an unlimited number of very high quality commercial audiobooks, but you don’t own them. The Audible Premium has 250,000 audiobooks available, but each one of them generally costs $14.95 to purchase with either your Audible credit or debit card. Although this catalog is larger, I prefer the Audible Plus catalog.
Scribd
Another great subscription service is called Scribd. This subscription service costs $11.99 per month for unlimited reading and listening, but, again, you don’t own them. Scribd has several million ebooks and 40,000 audiobooks. The advantage of Scribd is that for your monthly subscription you have unlimited reading for the month.
I highly recommend these low cost or free sources for audiobooks.
James Nuttall, PhD 