Friday, June 21, 2013

Audiobook Week: Friday


Today's prompt:

"Where do you learn about great audiobook titles? Buy your audiobooks? Share your secrets with the rest of us! We’d particularly love to know what narrators or publishers are active in social media or do a great job communicating with listeners."


I wish I had a good answer, at least to the first question. I've learned about many good ones through my online book discussion message board; it used to be at TheNest.com and then many of us migrated away to a site on ProBoards. That's where I learned about Nora Roberts' Bridal Quartet, Karen Moning's Fever series, and a few more. I started picking up on patterns and a few production companies and narrators I liked, and I would search for more works by them.

As to where I buy my audiobooks, I try not to. They are expensive. I used to download almost all of my audiobooks through OverDrive from either my local library system or the Free Library of Philadelphia (as a PA resident whose local library is in the PA Access program, I can get a free card to any other participating public library in the state). Sadly, now that Brilliance Audio has pulled its titles, I will probably have to find an alternative way to get my fix.

I'll still borrow what I can through OverDrive, check my local library for titles they may have on CD, and hit up LibriVox for free recordings of classics. I purchase some titles used on CD from Better World Books. I'm considering a couple of CD rental services (Simply Audiobooks and Audiotogo, similar to the Netflix disc program, for the near future.

5 comments:

  1. I have never bought an audiobook...they are just too expensive for one listen. I do use my library and Overdrive and had no idea about Brilliance Audio pulling out...what a bummer!

    ~Kristin @ Always With a Book

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  2. Glad to see someone else mention Librivox. They aren't perfect but they definitely work in a pinch! (though I did enjoy Martin Jarvis's Jekyll and Hyde on Librivox). I haven't looked at rental services. Sounds interesting!

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  3. I always try to get my audiobooks from the library first too.

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  4. I think you'd have to listen to a lot of non-library audiobooks to make those rental subscriptions worth it. They're more expensive than the subscription plans where you actually buy the books.

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    1. Any purchase subscriptions plans that you could recommend? I'm anti-Amazon, so Audible is out for me. I figure if I listened to one or two titles a month at $18 a month, I'd come out ahead of buying them individually... At least for the specific books I've priced on the different sites I've seen.

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