More on Audiobooks

Looking around a few of my favourite blogs last night, I came across an article on Justin Germino’s site from back in December, entitled Audiobooks Are One Of My Favorite Hobbies.

It was interesting to read Justin’s article, because he seems to be in very much the same boat as myself, in that he has a very busy life thanks to the responsibilities of children, work and blogging.

Like Justin, I also enjoy reading, and used to get through a fair few books every year, but since my life is so much busier today than it has been previously I turned to audiobooks to keep up on my reading.

It seems that Justin prefers a CD in his car while on a journey, whereas I prefer to listen on my iPod, but that is irrelevant.  What is important is the fact that audiobooks are catching on.

Justin mentions in the article a quote from the big man of scares himself, Stephen King which I found interesting

“Audiobooks are among the best mediums for delivering the author’s work as it forces the reader to stay at the pace of the narrator and helps prevent people who skip ahead or skim faster through certain pages rather than others”

This raises a good point.  Books were written by an author with a story in mind, obviously, but an audiobook, as opposed to a printed book, helps to tell the story at the pace the author intended.

Now, unlike Justin, I do not pay for my audiobooks.  I’ve mentioned Podiobooks.com in a previous article, where you can download free audiobooks, released in podcast format (where each audiobook is divided in to episodes, and downloaded via RSS).  Justin prefers, it would seem, the readings of already bestselling novels. 

The point is, it doesn’t matter how you get your audiobooks, paid for or not, from mainstream authors or otherwise, the important thing to remember is

Audiobooks let you read (listen) to books when you would otherwise not have time.

So here is another reminder of Podiobooks.com, my preferred site for accessing thousands of free episodic audiobooks.

Do you know of any other good sources for free (legal) audiobooks?  Do you have any thoughts you would like to share on this article?  Please leave a comment, and don’t forget to Digg, Stumble or whatever, it all helps!

Free Audiobooks From Podiobooks.com

For quite some time now I've subscribed through iTunes to various podcasts.  These have mostly been technology and software related.  After a few months I noticed that a great many of the podcasts I listen to regurgitate the same news over and over again, so there was no need for me to be listening to more than half a dozen.  As such I unsubscribed from a few.

So then I found that I was a bit bored.  No longer would I find myself listening to podcasts on my iPod while doing my daily chores, out walking, at work and such,and have found that even with my extensive mp3 library, music gets boring after a while.

I went on the hunt for something new, and came across Scott Sigler’s website.  Scott is a novelist, a best selling author, of many horror fiction novels.  He releases his novels as podcasts and as a printed book.

The podcasts are free, so I started listening to Infected, which was really quite good.  Scott has an impressive reading voice, and the content of the novel was thrilling.

Once I finished Infected, I found myself wanting more, and am now listening to Nocturnal.  Nocturnal is a very different story to Infected, but thus far it is just as gripping.

I went looking around for more Audiobooks/Podcasts and found iTunes Library to be a bit of a nightmare to search, so I went looking online instead and found Podiobooks.com which contains an impressive library of titles in many genres.

The best thing I have found about Podiobooks.com is the way it allows you to download the books.

You have a choice of programs to use, such as iTunes, Zune and PodcastReady, you can also subscribe to a normal RSS feed.

More importantly though, it allows you to download at a frequency which is fit for you.

Podiobooks.com will send you a new episode everyday, every other day, every three days, every week, every other week or every month.  You can ever select an option to release all episodes which then allows you to download all episodes to your player at once.  That way you don’t have to wait, you just have the book there ready and waiting to be played.

Podiobooks.com is a free service, unlike Audible.com which requires a subscription fee.

If you like Podcasts, and you like Audiobooks, give Podiobooks.com a go.  You have nothing to lose, and a great deal to gain

NOTE:  This is not a paid for ad or review of Podiobooks.com.  I get no payment for your clicks. 

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