Are there good places to get free audio books?

YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY IS A GOOD PLACE , YOU CAN GET INFORMATION FROM THE LIBRARY WEBSITE !!!

nikkona,

Wow great thought!  I live in the sticks in NH but will stop by my local library and see what they offer…Not sure if they have a website but will look! Thanks! George

Having two little kids I frequent the local library more than most and I can say for sure that most if not all libraries have a pretty extensive audio/visual section.  I live in a pretty small place, <100,000 ppl and they have 100’s if not thousands of books on CD’s.  I don’t know the legalness behind it but I am sure it would be pretty easy to rip those CD’s into MP3 files.  Infact, I spent the summer in Kansas City and their city library had a download section where you could download an audiobook for 30 days, after 30 days it would stop working.  It was free to download and they had thousands of titles.

Yes, as said above, there are several free options.

  • if supported by your local library: DRM’d WMA* audiobooks from NetLibrary.

  • if supported by your local library: DRM’d WMA* audiobooks from OverDrive Media.  You can check for yourself here, on the right under “SEARCH LIBRARIES”.

  • MP3 files ripped from local library CDs or cassettes.

  • Project Gutenberg has many classics in audiobook form, some with human readers.

  • Serialized Podiobooks.

  • Sites that I’ve never used, but had in my bookmarks here and here and here and here.

  • A Custom Google Search.

Here is someone’s blog about free audiobooks.

*The Fuze, Clip, Connect, e100-series, e-200-series (when set to MTP/PlaysForSure) m200-series all play NetLibrary or OverDrive Media audiobooks. It’s PlaysForSure compatibility that you want (PlaysForSure = MTP + some little something else), which is supported by most Sandisk, Creative, Samsung, Cowon, Rio players, but not iPod nor Zune.

Message Edited by jj2me on 09-15-2008 12:37 PM

@tmcarson1 wrote:

Check out Librivox, they have some there.

 

 LibriVox

 

I use Librivox.  They are the older, classics that are past copywright and were never renewed.  Most have various readers, and some are okay, as they are volunteer.  But I like them.

I haven’t tried my library yet as I have several I want to listen to still!

The Internet Archive website offers every kind of media for free. I often download old radio shows from them and put them in the Fuze. Our neighbor’s kids uses this site as a source for children’s books. There are videos, international books and audio files, tv shows, etc. Try it out here: http://www.archive.org/details/audio There is absolutely no charge for any files and the site welcomes uploads, too.

Just to clear my mind, if I go to the library website and download a drm’d wma file, then transfer it to my Fuse, it will play fine?

Message Edited by kmoffat on 01-04-2009 02:53 PM

I dont know about NH or your local library but I know some big cities libraries even offer delivery “Netflix Style” I dont know what the biggest city in NH is but try that library on line.

If it is DRM Crippled I doubt it will work but try it anyhow (If tis free) and see if it works.

@kmoffat wrote:
Just to clear my mind, if I go to the library website and download a drm’d wma file, then transfer it to my Fuse, it will play fine?

Dependent on you properly loading it according to how that library’s site works, then “yes.”

The Fuze plays DRM’d WMAs (and of course unprotected MP3s).

You’ll have to ensure it is deposited in your player’s “Audiobooks” directory in order to get proper resume functioning.

OverDrive Media library audiobooks require you to install their OverDrive Media Console PC application. When you download from your library, The OM Console app opens. You also use that app to transfer to the player (and in some intermediate step, click “Advanced Options” which allows you to change the target directory from “\Music” to “\Audiobooks” ).

For NetLibrary, the procedure will be different. I don’t have access to NetLibrary, so if that’s your library’s source of audiobooks, you’ll have to search these forums for more details, if following your library’s instructions didn’t work.

Message Edited by jj2me on 01-05-2009 11:17 AM

@shlurpee wrote:
 I live in a pretty small place, <100,000 ppl and they have 100’s if not thousands of books on CD’s.

 

Ha.  If you added up the biggest 5 cities in my state it might get to 100,000 people.  Still, mine at pop 15000 has several racks of CD books in the library.

 Emusic.com has a pretty good selection (mp3, no DRM) and you can get one on a free trial before you have to start paying. 

I believe NetLibrary requires you to use Windows Media Player to sync.  I don’t know of any other way to copy in the DRM.  I’ve tried just dragging and dropping and the DRM doesn’t come.

I just recently purchased my fuze and love it.  This website sounds like it has alot to offer.  I’ve been wanting to try the audiobook feature on my fuze and it looks like a good place to start.

Overdrive Console works great and you don’t even need to use MTP mode.

Netlibrary does require WMP11 to sync the licenses.

Both are available at my public library and all the content is free.

You may sometimes need to wait until a title is “checked back in” by another user.

The best free Audiobook place of them all:

 

Podiobooks

 

I hghly reccommend Nathan Lowell’s books (all of them) and for a rollicking good ride try J C Hutchin’s 7th Son series.

Thanks. I grabbed overdrive and am able to download WMA audiobooks from my county library and transfer them to my Fuse. They play fine.

@badcam wrote:

The best free Audiobook place of them all:

 

Podiobooks

 

I hghly reccommend Nathan Lowell’s books (all of them) and for a rollicking good ride try J C Hutchin’s 7th Son series.

Thanks for that link.  Looks like some interesting books.

I’ve actually never listened to an audiobook. Maybe I should give it a try one of these days.

You don’t know what your missing out. You’ll be very surprised about the quality of those on Podiobooks.

Both in great story telling and Audio Quality. Free is good.

They don’t require MTP mode do they?