How to Get Free Audiobooks

Special Offer: Get a free best-selling audiobook and a 14-day trial to Audible.com. After your 14-day free trial, you can choose to cancel your membership with no obligation or continue with the gold membership for $14.95 per month. Click here to get your free audiobook.

There are a large number of websites that offer free audiobook downloads in MP3 format. Most of the titles that are available are recordings of books that have fallen out of copyright law and entered into the public domain. It is possible to get first-run titles for free, such as those on the New York Times® Audiobook Best Sellers List, by taking advantage of free trial offers from audiobook subscription clubs such as Audible.com and Simply Audiobooks.

Independently Produced Free Audiobooks

	New Fiction New Fiction offers free modern-day radio dramas called iSoaps. The titles on New Fiction vary from other free audiobook websites in that they are not public domain books in audiobook format, rather newer fiction titles from independent authors.
	Podiobooks Podiobooks provides free audiobooks in episodic form over RSS so that readers can enjoy titles one chapter at a time. The service contains approximately 500 original fiction titles.
	Storynory Storynory offers free audiobook children’s stories. This U.K.-based website provides audiobook versions of dozens of classic fairytales, educational stories and original titles.

Public Domain Audiobooks

	AudiobooksForFree.com AudiobooksForFree.com contains a large database of free audiobooks. This service does a superb job of organizing audiobook titles into categories and offers newer royalty-free audiobooks in addition to those in the public domain. Unfortunately, this website has not been updated since 2008.
	FreeClassicAudiobooks.com FreeClassicAudiobooks.com offers classic audiobooks in MP3 and M4B format. The service contains a few dozen titles, including a free audiobook copy of the King James Bible and Spanish, Italian and French language learning audiobooks.
	LearnOutLoud  LearnOutLoud is a service that provides free copies of audiobooks, lectures, speeches, sermons and interviews in audio (MP3) and video format. This website has approximately 3,400 titles available as of March 2011.
	Librivox (Recommended Resource) Librivox is one of the larger services that offer free public domain audiobooks. As of March 2011, Librivox had approximately 4,250 titles available. Librivox also organizes volunteers to create audiobook recordings of public domain audiobooks for free consumption.
	OpenCulture OpenCulture, a website dedicated to providing free educational and cultural media, maintains a list of freely downloadable audiobooks in MP3 format. Most of the titles that are available from OpenCulture are classics and other public domain works. This website also maintains a list of free podcasts.
	Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg, a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, maintains a library of public domain audiobooks. Some of the titles are read by narrators and some were created using synthesized technology (computer generated voices). Project Gutenberg collaborates with Librivox and AudiobooksForFree.com to organize volunteers to create human-read recordings of audiobooks.

Free Trial Offers

Both Audible.com and Simply Audiobooks have 14-day trial offers which provide users with a free audiobook title of their choice, including those on best sellers lists. These trial offers are advantageous to users because they provide free access to titles that are not available on sites which offer public domain audiobooks.

Audible.com (Recommended Resource) Audible.com, the world’s largest provider of digital audiobook downloads, has a free trial offer in which new users can get one free audiobook (one credit) and a fourteen day free trial to the service’s gold membership. Users have the option of cancelling their service before the end of their fourteen day trial and paying nothing, or continuing to receive one audiobook (one credit) for $14.95 per month. Click here to get a free audiobook from Audible.com

Simply Audiobooks Simply Audiobooks is a hybrid service that offers CD-based audiobook rentals and digital audiobook downloads. The company offers a fourteen day free trial to its CD audiobook rental service. Simply Audiobooks has approximately 20,000 titles in its CD library and provides free shipping both ways. Users have the option of cancelling their service before the end of their fourteen day trial and paying nothing, or continuing in the audiobook rental program for $17.95 per month.