7 Sources for Free Audio Books

Some call me weird, but I prefer listening to audio books rather than music most of the time. I think I just like to keep learning and keep my brain going.

If you like to listen to audio books you might like to benefit from free books.

There are 7 sources I know of for free audio books.

Project Gutenberg: Probably the hub all all things public domain, this is always a good place to start your search. Project Gutenberg's audio page has links to some of the sites below, but also has it's own directory of human-read and computer generated audio books you can browse.

LibriVox: Contains human-read books from the public domain. So mostly these books are classics written before 1920 or so. From their site: LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain and release the audio files back onto the net. Our goal is to make all public domain books available as free audio books. We are a totally volunteer, open source, free content, public domain project.

Literal Systems: This site does not have quite as large as selection, but they are all free still. Also, every book seems to be only in MP3 format - which is usually my preference anyway.

AudioBooksForFree.com: This site has over a thousand titles of free audio books. I think this site is a bit deceiving though. It is plagued with dollar signs. The books are free if downloaded in "bearable" quality (8 Kb/sec). A better quality download will cost a bit more.

The Public Library: Yes this is a no-brainer, but often overlooked. You local library has thousands of books on CD. My library has links online to download audio books (unfortunately they only work in Window's Media for a set number of days that I have the book "checked out", but it is simple enough to extend those days.)

Audible: Now this source is not free per se, but if you don't have an account there, you can join as a platinum member and get 3 free audio books. These are high quality best sellers that you are not going to find free anywhere else (except your public library). If you want them to be free, you have to cancel within 14 days of signing up.

PodioBooks: Here you can sign up to get portions of audio books delivered via RSS feeds. From the site's FAQ: All the books you'll find on podiobooks.com are provided by the authors to you for free. Many authors do this to get exposure for their work, others do it in the hopes you'll buy their next work in development. Still others simply do it for the sheer joy of writing. And while it's not required, you have the option to donate money to the author of your choice. When you consider that audio books run usually 50% more than their hardcover counterparts... we hope you'll be generous. Authors receive 75% of all the proceeds from the donations from listeners. The smaller portion goes to the maintenance and upkeep of podiobooks.com.Yes there are other sources of free audio books out there. Some legal, some not so, but this should get you started.