Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Free Audio Books: Free Audio Books & How to Get Them

Free Audio Books
Perhaps you are one of the many people in the world who love listening to audio books. They can be found just about anywhere—the World Wide Web, book stores, rental services and department stores, among other places; and now nearly any book imaginable is available on both compact disc and audio cassette. Perhaps, also, you are flat broke. Maybe the holiday season has left you banknote impaired—yet you just cannot manage to free yourself from a desire to finally relax and enjoy listening to a favorite book. Fortunately, that is not an impossible dream, regardless of the circumstances. And it is a dream that can be realized without spending a single penny!

There are many ways to get your hands on free audio books. An obvious example would be your local library. While this bit of advice may not be true of all libraries, it can be said that many branches are now catching on to the trend. Of course, there are always those whose local libraries are a bit too “old-fashioned” but on the other end of the spectrum, many libraries are now offering free audio book downloads.

If, however your local library seems to be of the antique brand, then there are many options for those with internet access. A Los Angeles based service, Jiggerbug, offers free trials of their audio book rental service. They provide an extensive catalogue of audio book titles; and if you like the audio in their collection, then feel free to burn them onto CD for your own personal use (meaning do not get caught selling multiple copies of Brokeback Mountain from your car’s trunk). Copyright laws don’t take kindly to being broken; the consequences of doing so can be heinous.

Also worthy of mention is Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org ), a website consisting of free computer generated audio that are available for download. Although their selection does not include many contemporary reads, it is a good source for classic literature if you don't mind listening to a computerized voice.

And finally, there’s always the do-it-yourself method: record your own audio books! This is especially a great idea for parents of young children. With free software Microsoft Speech SDK and Text Aloud MP3, you have only to decide on a book that you believe your child or children will most enjoy. Also, you shouldn’t worry if you don’t have the voice of James Earl Jones—the kids don’t care. It wouldn’t be a bad thing, though, would it?

While these suggestions may be considered obvious to some, it is often the obvious things that are overlooked. Regardless of your methods, though, it’s hard to go wrong when you’re getting stuff for free!

Terrell Jacobs - An Audio Book Enthusiast

Audio Book Search Search over 25,000 audio book titles across the internet
Audio Books - Free Trial Membership for new customers

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Free Audio Books: Did You Know That Audio Books Are Free?

Free Audio Books
You may think that audio books are expensive. As it appears to be – they are not. In fact, I was listening to audio books for many years and have never paid a dime for it. And I am not talking piracy here, just read on.

The best source of free audio books is your local library. Libraries have a great selection of audio books on tapes and CDs right on their shelves. Any library is usually a part of a big Network or a Consortium of libraries and funds. This Network comprises dozens of local libraries and has combined collections of millions of items. In the online catalog you can find and request most of the audio books ever published. This is great! And I cannot stress enough: libraries have most of the audio books ever published. There is one disadvantage though: it may take days, or even weeks, for your order to arrive to your local library for you to pick it up. So this option is for patient readers. If you finally got the book you so much desired, you may want to make the listening process even more convenient and enjoyable by converting it into the mp3 format.

Another option for more impatient listeners also can be found at your local library. Digital catalogs are relatively new, but they become more and more popular among the libraries. They provide a very convenient means for you to download audio books, and they have a great selection. The download services are provided by OverDrive and NetLibrary nationwide. NetLibrary might not allow burning CDs but Overdrive does. If your local library is not yet participating, you can initiate the process by referring to the digital provider OverDrive. In just a few minutes, even the newest user can be enjoying a downloaded title. Instead of burning a CD, you may want to use your mp3 player for listening.

Bear in mind, however, that not all mp3 players are good for audio books. Also, both OverDrive and NetLibrary provide audio files in the secure DRM wma format designed by Microsoft. iPods, designed by Apple, don’t support wma. So if you decide to use the digital download services provided by you library, make sure your audio player supports this format. You can find more information on mp3 file conversion and mp3players for audio books at http://www.booksalley.com

As you can see now, audio books are not at all expensive. In fact they are free. And they are great fun. So, why not try giving music a break and switch to a great alternative - audio books. Audio books may give you many hours of unforgettable pleasure. Try it out, and who knows, this might just become a new hobby!


Free Audio Books: Free Classic Audio Books - A Deal That's Not Too Good To Be True

Free Audio Books
With free classic audio books, you can listen to some of the greatest literature ever written-for free!

It's true. Today's technology makes it possible for publishers to deliver classic audio books for free. When publishers do not have to pay for media like compact discs (CDs) or paper and bindings to publish their books, they save a fortune on publishing expenses, and they pass a portion of their savings on to their listeners.

Once a publisher uploads a copy of a free classic book to its web site, it costs the publisher next to nothing to make that book available to the public. The audio book listener merely downloads a series of mp3 files on to their own hardware or listening device.

Free audio books are available only by download. If you get these books on CD, you should expect to pay a fee for hardware (the CD), shipping, and handling.

It's not only technology that makes it possible for publishers to give away free books. Old classic novels, literature, and non-fiction books are extremely affordable for publication, because the copyrights have expired, and the books are royalty free. Publishers provide a much needed public service by making these well-loved, best-selling classics available in free audio book format.

Examples of Free Classic Audio Books

Many classic books are such great stories that they have formed the basis for movies and TV shows in later years. That is why you might recognize some of the free classic audio book titles as feature films. Here are just a few of the free classic books you can find available for download on the Internet:

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is the classic story of a mischievous boy growing up in rural Mississippi in the 1800s. Huckleberry Finn is the sequel. These free classic audio books make great listening for children, adults, or the entire family together.

White Fang, by Jack London. The title character of this free classic audio book is half wolf, half sled dog. After his parents are killed and he suffers abuse at the hand of a cruel master, White Fang is a menace until eventually finding peace with a kind owner.

Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan. The language in this old allegory can be tough for children, but the story line comes through loud and clear when it is read to you in an audio book.

Graham Winmill has written a series of articles about Dieting. Find further information on this subject at

Audio Books andClassic Audio Books

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Free Audio Books: Download Free Audio Books

Free Audio Books
There is a great number of websites offering to download free audio books, e-books about different topics, also free software. Somebody may wonder why are they offering that, is there any hidden reason to do it or they are simply generous and like to give away free stuff.

At first, one would think they are losing money, why giving away for example a free audio book when they can charge for it. However, lots of people query the search engines with the word free, trying to find free stuff, maybe because they don't want to spend money on the web, maybe in certain countries they are afraid to use their credit card online. Offering free content, is a great way to receive a great number of visitors in your web site. But, if they are looking for free things, you may think its useless to have them as a visitor. That's not right ! Maybe they won't buy now, but if they sign-up to the site or a newsletter in the site, the owner of the website will have the possibility to sell him things in the future, perhaps offering some great opportunities such as a discounted items only for people in that list.

On the other hand, visitors to the site may click in some of the ads or banners the website has, perhaps also offering to download free audio books, and that would also make the website owner earn money.

From the customers point of view, what should be done ? Maybe say: "They are cheating me, I won't download nothing, they only want me to buy" That would be useless, it would be a better idea to visit the site that offers free audio books, and check if they like any of the free titles offered. Also if the website has ads, visit other sites which may also offer to download free audio books.

And who knows, maybe some time after, there is a great offer, and you will finish buying a very interesting audio book you hadn't thought about.

Alberto Abudara is the owner of Audio Book Fortress, http://www.audiobookfortress.com, an audio book store offering more than 30 audio books free. Click on the FREE Tab. To find more information about audio books visit his blog at http://mp3-audio-book.blogspot.com/

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Free Audio Books: How to Get Free Audio Books!

Free Audio Books
Who says you must spend a fortune to benefit from the wonder of audio books?

I agree that most audio book stores are in the business of making profit, so won't be willing to give out audio books for free, but there are other sources to get completely free audio books.

Below are some of them:

1. Libraries. You won't believe it but many libraries are now catching up on the incredible value of audio books and so are embracing the technology.

These libraries now have audio book rental services where users can download audio books from the comfort of their homes or offices.

So, visit the website of your local library or give them a call to inquire if they offer this service or not. If they don't, search the Internet for libraries that do.

There are many of them available and if your search is intensive you might find what you are looking for, without having to cough up the money needed to purchase your own copies.

2. Audio book rental websites. There are audio book rental websites that allow users to download some of their audio books for free, to get a feel of the benefits of being members.

Note that you are only permitted to use these audio books for your own personal use and not for commercial purposes. If you are caught burning these audio books into CDs to sell, it will be considered a very serious criminal offence.

3. Check out Project Gutenberg. You can visit Project Gutenberg.org for completely free computer generated audio books.

These are other audio book stores that don't give users complete versions of their audio books for free, but give free excerpts. These excerpts can be a few minutes to more than 30 minutes.

These audio book stores do this to give users a feel of what the complete audio book contains.

Most times you would feel so engrossed into the audio book that when it stops you would want to do anything you can to buy the complete audio book. This is a good technique that works for many audio book stores.

So, who says you must pay each time to get free audio books?

***Visit OdioMall.com for over 5,000 Downloadable Audios.***

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*Please feel free to copy, send, or distribute this article at anytime as long as the article is not changed, and the entire author resource box is included with the article as written.

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Free Audio Books: 5 Reasons Why Audio Books Are Better Than Paper Books

Free Audio Books
Audio books have gone crazy in popularity in the last couple of years. The technology involved, number of titles published added to the realization of the benefits that audio books can offer have combined to bring them very much into the mainstream as a genuine alternatives to paper back or hard back books. Indeed in many situations they offer much more than a traditional book could, for example, you can't learn a language from a paper book while walking the dog can you? Of course not, but with an audio book you can!

So it's no surprise that people are going mad for audio books. Here are just a few of the advantages that audio books have over normal hardcover or paperback books:

1) You can make incredibly constructive use of dead time. Time that would be otherwise impossible to fill with a normal book. For example, listen to a section of a hyper motivational audiobook while on the way to work.

You'll not only learn but also save the time spent reading such a book. More than that though, a book is a passive device that you have to draw information out of.

An audio book by contrast pushes it at you. In the example of motivational audio books that's a massive advantage as you can get the worlds best motivators giving you a pre work pep talk every day. That will, I absolutely guarantee you, energize you for the day ahead.

2) Audio books are much more cost effective and environment friendly than hardback and paperbacks. Very simply they don't need trees to be cut down and greenhouse gases released to produce them.

3) With mp3 player functions such as mid track resume, bookmarking or simple visual chapter selection you can flip through them easily and quickly. Pick up where you left off or find a place easily again just like that.

4) You can listen to an audio book when it's dark (example - walking the dog at night when you have no lights). So, with an audio book you can still 'read' no matter what the time or situation. I find them great when out fishing at night when you don't want to use a light but do want to have a book going.

5) Get the kids to sleep easier - With an audio book, unlike a normal book you can simply play it for them until they fall asleep. Plus with audio books specifically for children the narrator(s) are expert actor/speakers trained to read children's books so they make them loads of fun and then there are extras like the sound effects that really bring it to life better than you can (sorry to say but it's true!)

So why not go and check out some audiobooks today and find out for yourself how useful and how fun they are. There are loads of free audio books as well so you can test the water for free as well.

From London, Nick now lives in Sweden Lena his wife, and Gunnar a fluffy Border Terrier. He likes long walks which he combines with learning Swedish from audio books. He runs http://www.myaudiobookshelf.com where you'll find 8000+ audio books to download, monthly special offers http://www.myaudiobookshelf.com/specialOffers.aspx and links to a vast but little known network of free audio book websites. Sign up to his email list or download an audio book and you'll get access to his full list of free audio book sites!

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Free Audio Books: How to Get Free Audio Books

Free Audio Books
The only purpose of the following lines is to help you get free audio books – free downloadable audio books and free audio books in general. Although there are some illegal ways we can think of to get free audio books, we will mention only the legal ones:

1. Free trials: There are some online shops which offer a free trial agreement, meaning you pay nothing or you can get your money back if you are dissatisfied with the products you get. The free trial agreement could be found for audio book cd and for downloadable audio books. Getting free
audio books by this method is quite easy and could be down in no time. However, there are some cons:
First, we believe there might be an ethical problem knowing from the beginning that no money is going to be paid for the product and that the online audio book service will be used to get a free audio book.
Secondly, not all audio books are offered for the free trial. Therefore, you might get free audio books but not the ones you looked for.
The last con is that some of the free trial periods are too short to listen to the audio book. Therefore, you get free audio books but have no time to listen to them.

2. File sharing services: There are numerous file sharing services on the net (Most use p2p technologies) that allow downloading files for free. We have founded more than 100 free audio books ready to download from these sites. However, it took us a lot of time to find them and the bandwidth rate was slow.

3. Search engines: You could find lots of free audio books by just searching for the right sites. Look for the small sits by typing the exact title you want and the phrase: “free audio book”. For example, if you are looking for an Harry Potter audio book just type : “Harry Potter” + “Free audio book”.

4. Markets – you can find audio books to swap with other products in some flea markets and second hand shops.

To sum up, there are no free presents. Although, there are ways to get free audio books, we think it is better to pay a couple of bucks for online audio book rental services – the worthwhile method of getting nearly free audio books.

911 Corp. has executed an independent research to find the best place to get audio books from. Find out the clear results and all about free audio books and audio books free downloads only on the Free audio books information.

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Free Audio Books: Free Audio Books Vs. The Old Fashioned Books

Free Audio Books
In the last two decades a new concept has arisen - The concept of listening to a book instead of reading it. The audio book technology is still developing but audio books are getting more and more popular. However, the old fashioned book is still the much more common than any other method. In this article we will elaborate on the differences between these two book methods:

1. Size and Weight – The audio book does not have the limitation of the the size and the amount of the printing words. The technology advance imposes the size of the audio book. The newest audio books could be stored as an audio file in mobile electronic devices as Ipod or Palm pilot.

2. Convenience - The audio book has the limitation of listening only from certain predefined points or from the exact point one stopped listening the last time. Reading an old fashioned book is much more flexible of course. If you only want to go through a book without reading it from start to end, do not even consider getting an audio book.

3. Listening to an audio book could be done anywhere anytime – while exercising in the gym, driving through the heavy traffic to work etc. It helps you make the most of your time. Reading the old fashioned book requires certain conditions like concentration and quiet and relaxed surroundings.

4. Price – Surprisingly, in general the old fashioned books costs less than audio books. Depending on the different titles and different methods of audio books it can vary. Among the audio books, audio books on MP3 files are the less expensive ones.

5. The experience – the experience of reading a book is unique and can not be the same as listening to audio books. In addition, audio books do not have drawings in them like some of the old fashioned books.

Summing up, we believe that audio books and the old fashioned books could exist together one besides the other and not one instead of the other.

911 Corp. has executed an independent research to find the best place to get audio books from. Find out the clear results and all about audio books only on the Free Audio books bible.

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Free Audio Books: Free Audio Books - All About Low Cost and Free Audio Books

Free Audio Books
This is not another misleading title. Free audio books exist. You could find free downloadable audio books or low cost ones easily. How come, where and why you should start listening to audio books immediately? Find out the answers in a few minutes.

How come there are free audio books available?

Well, think of it, there is almost no cost in publishing an audio book. The only costs are payments for the authors and the narrators (The people who read and record the book). There are no production costs – absolutely no raw material when producing a new downloadable audio book.
On the opposite side, the old fashioned books are made of an expensive raw material – Paper, which is made out of wood – a limited resource globally.

Why should you start listening to audio books immediately?

A fact: People who listen to audio books have a significant advantage over all the others. That’s exactly why the audio books momentum is rising but is just in the beginning – Millions are listening regularly to audio books, Audio books clubs are arising and most of the new books are being published also as audio books. Audio books help you making the most of your time – You could read them while jogging, driving, cleaning the house etc. Audio books are the books of the 21st century.

Where can you get free audio books and low cost ones?

I would say that the best place would be the online audio book rental services. There are several but most of them are not recommendable – either they have a small collection of audio books, low quality audio books or they have a bad customer service. After finding the best audio books rental services you should for free trials. Free trials are the best way of trying this audio books fashion and it is completely free. Free trials are the only legal way of getting free downloadable audio books.
Audio book rental is the most worthy program. This way, you could get lots of audio books for the lowest price.

911 corp. has made a research to find the best sources of free audio books. Find the results on Free downloadable audio books and more - The audio book bible. All about audio books on http://www.911makemoretime.com/audio

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Free Audio Books: Expand Your Horizons with Free Audio Books

Free Audio Books
One of the best things about the online audio books industry is that companies and websites can offer free audio books because they do not have to buy music literature materials for production. With downloadable music books, there are no products to purchase, which in turn gives online companies the opportunity to offer free downloads.

This is not only helpful for the company, but it also opens up a wider selection of books for consumers who are otherwise hesitant about purchasing titles in genres that they are not accustomed to reading.

A great place to get a number of free audio books is free-books. Like other music literature websites, you can log on to their page and download a wide variety of free books for personal and educational purposes.

If you are looking for titles from classical literature, the website provides free MP3 downloads from over 200 titles in their selection. You can also find European history titles and various other selections.

For adults looking for educational books, free-books offers many books that you can listen to and come away with information you may have not had before. "The Autobiography of Charles Darwin" is an example of one of the free audio books offered to people who might find this an interesting listen.

The recently published "1492" is a book written about the expedition that brought Christopher Columbus to America and is available as a free audio book download on the website. Another notable section of books available for download on free-books include children's music books. Titles like "Pinocchio", "Alice in Wonderland" and "Andersen's Fairy Tales" are just a few of the music books that kids will be sure to enjoy.

For more mature kids, the site also offers free audio download books like "Jane Eyre", "Huckleberry Finn" and "Robinson Crusoe". Children music literatures are a wonderful and exciting alternative to the popular video games or television programs that have flooded homes today. They not only help stimulate the imagination, they are more productive and educational than many other forms of entertainment.

You can find free music books online to satisfy any of your listening needs. If you like history, you can find historical works on websites that offer free music literatures. If you enjoy Charles Dickens or Emily Bronte, you can find free audio books of their writings as well.

You can add a large number of audio literatures to your audio book library just through websites that provide free audio downloads. You can expand your library even further if you are willing to buy music literatures because many of the newer best sellers are available for a discounted price.

Mike Selvon is the owner of various niche portals. Our audio books portal is a great resource for more information on free audio books. While you are there don't forget to claim your free gift.

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