I used to work very long hours, and spent many of them in my car. But despite the 14 hour days in addition to the regular chores to keep my home chugging along, I managed to read five to ten books each month.
This wasn't because I'm a speed reader or an insomniac. It's because I actually didn't read the books - I listened to them.
Audiobooks are not a new phenomenon. Originally designed for the optically impaired, their popularity has spread to those who are short on time to devote to solely reading. (It says something interesting about our society that we must multi-task even when we're exercising or driving, doesn't it???)
Nevertheless, personally I have found audiobooks to be a welcome change of pace from listening to the radio or mp3 tunes while driving or working out.
You can go to the library and borrow the audiobooks of your choice, but often the selection is limited, and if you live in a rural area without easy access to a library you'd be less likely to choose this route.
And you can buy your audiobooks, but the outrageous cost is prohibitive for most, especially if you want to listen to five to ten books each month.
I found the solution to all these problems in a company called Simply Audiobooks. It is a rental and download service featuring an absolutely massive selection of audiobooks. It works similar to Netflix, except their product is books, not movies.
I subscribed to the rental service. I paid a flat monthly fee, and set up a virtual bookshelf using my online account to select from the tens of thousands of available titles, prioritizing which ones I wanted to receive first.
Simply Audiobooks then mailed me the first two available titles on my bookshelf. There is no due date or late fee. As soon as I was finished with one book, I simply repackaged the CD set using their ingenious postage-paid packaging and popped it back in the mailbox. I'd then start listening to my second book, and by the time I was finished with it, the next one on my list had arrived!
By always having an audiobook in my car, I was able to read five to ten books each month. I read up on a variety of topics and genres, from fiction to non-fiction, self-help to business, and even fitness-related books with yoga and pilates exercises.
If you would like to try out the CD rental service for yourself, you can! Simply click here to register, enter in the coupon/promo code SABDAB and you'll receive a free two-week trial!
Simply Audiobooks' download service is something I never tried, but appears to be a great option since mp3 players are ever-present and now easy to use in the car too. It is also a great way to develop a home collection of books to read and re-read again. Er...I mean…listen and re-listen again.
To receive a free download, click here.
I remain one of Simply Audiobooks' biggest fans, and am pleased to recommend it to any Wise Bread reader who would love to read more, learn more, and enrich their brains more, but simply can't find the time to sit down and read a good book.
Some audio books I listened to from the library actually had instructions at the beginning on how to send them back when you were done, etc. I hadn't considered such a subscription, but it might be worth it if I were driving a lot.
As it is, I'm blessed with a metro commute and so I'm able to read physical books. My dad always did audio, though. Made him much happier.
My husband is dyslexic so has trouble reading books. He loves audiobooks and started with them on his 45 min commute. Now in retirement he listens as he putters (he said it's work) around the house. Will have him check out this link. Now he uses the library and downloads thru a library link but it's getting to the point where he's running out of new titles. Thanks for the info!!
I'm a big fan of ChristianAudio.com and Audible.com. I've got more than fifty audio books stored on an extra harddrive at the house that I'll load on to my iPod. I just finished The Youngest Hero, a baseball novel.
Have you considered trying PodioBooks.com The ebooks are free and are mostly read by the authors. They accept donations to help support the site and the authors get at least 75% of the donations. Some of these are also up and coming authors and may have their own feeds but this site aggregates them together. Good for those with tight budgets or looking for something different. I have discovered some great works through this site and have subscribed to the authors feeds directly.
I read 5-10 books a week, and have done for the last 40 years or so. Print books. I don't own a TV, which may have something to do with it LOL, and I read every spare minute.
One of my closest friends swears by these. I haven't been able to incorporate it thus far, but may try this winter. Cool tip on the subscription companies, too. I didn't even know things like that existed . . .
To save on costs you can check audio books out at the library. I've listened to over 50 audio books on my commute for free, and using the inter-library loan system, there are hundreds more I look forward to listening to.
Thank you so much for posting this. I surprise my co-workers every day by listening to audiobooks as opposed to music while working. I love audiobooks, and I used to rent them online from Simply Audiobooks. I am not too fond of them. They would split up any book bigger than 4 discs into different mailings. When I say split up, I mean split up. I'd get the first half of a book, then another book, then another book, and then maybe the second half of the first book. If I got the second halves at all. To this day I don't think I've finished the audiobook version of 'Dark Tort' The library is a FANTASTIC place to get audiobooks; they will also order some books or ship them from other libraries. I have read many classics this way, Lolita, Cat's Cradle, (which I just finished at work today) Slaughterhouse Five, (finished it last week, it's been a Kurt Vonnegut month) and others. I agree wholeheartedly and I am a big advocate of audiobooks. It's not just for trips either, if you have a boring, monotonous job like I do, (see: Clerical) it helps to pass the time listening to these.
I also read paper books on my own time, but I want to read everything, and there's simply not enough years in a lifetime. =(
Another good audiobook source is http://librivox.org/
It's free mp3 downloads of books in the public domain. I'm a fan of the short stories, but there's a pretty good catalog of books to browse through. There are also some books in non-english languages. And it's free, so, uuh, why not?
I second the vote for Librivox, but have a couple of warnings.
-Their offerings are public-domain, so the books tend to be older (I'm catching up on some of those classics I never read).
-Maybe this isn't true of the short stories, but some of the full length books often have (many) different readers. I think Treasure Island had about 15, and most just regular folks who sometimes had trouble with tha pirate speak--ARR!
I'm quite fond of using this method when listening to audiobooks:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/08/overclock-your-audio-learning/
It might be time to pop on back over to Simply Audiobooks and take a peek at their new site. They have updated their service and now ship books of 15 cds or less in whole. No more book parts. I had cancelled my membership a while back because they split them up. Now I'm back and once again LOVING the service! Never have to wait for the second half and they seem to ship faster!
Since I got my iPod this spring I have been checking audio books out from the library. I have a 40 minute commute and used to listen to NPR but got tired of listening to the same stories over and over again. For me it is a great way to "read" books!
