Friday Five: Audio eBook Sources for Your nook

Let’s be clear: I’m not a big audio eBook listener. I find I lose my place when trying to follow spoken words, enthralling though the voice may be. I end up paying more attention to the voice than the content, which doesn’t bode well for, you know, actually making sense of and enjoying the words.

I know that some of you, however, love your audio. You listen to books on your commute or when running errands or just plain running. Today’s Friday Five is for you.

Just a few notes before we dig in.
1. nook plays only MP3s, so I won’t include the big audio monster, Audible, with it’s proprietary format.
2. You already know about Barnes and Noble and its MP3 eBooks, so I’m also leaving them out.

1. LibriVox: It’s the Project Gutenberg of the audio world. “Acoustical liberation of books in the public domain,” LibriVox proclaims. Not only can you download free classic books in MP3 and OGG formats, you can also give back and volunteer to read public domain works. Authors include Jane Austen, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Frank L. Baum, Robert Louis Stevenson, and many, many others.

2. eMusic Audiobooks: eMusic has always offered DRM-free music MP3s, they began to offer audiobook plans. (I’m an eMusic subscriber and have been since 2003, although I’ve never participated in the Audiobook program.) Currently, eMusic is offering a 14-day trial with one free eBook. If you want to purchase audiobooks from eMusic long-term, you must carry a month-to-month subscription ($9.99 for one eBook or $18.99 for two eBooks per month). Elizabeth Kostova’s The Swan Thieves and I, Alex Cross by James Patterson count among the bestsellers offered by eMusic.

3. EscapePod (science fiction), PodCastle (fantasy), and PsuedoPod (horror): The Escape Artists, Inc. group dishes out free (in terms of cost and DRM) MP3s of previously published short fiction every week.

4. Storynory.com: Also updated weekly, Storynory focuses on presenting audiobooks to children. A great option if you want to share the listening experience with your child, the site records a mixture of original stories, fairy tales, and “specially adapted myths and histories.” Storynory tales also come in ready-to-sideload MP3 format.

5. Podiobooks.com: A free-for-all audio repository for the more adventurous types out there, Podiobooks allows anyone to share serialized versions of their work. It’s the audio equivalent of Smashwords, so you may have to do a lot of digging to find decent material.

How often do you listen to audiobooks? Do you use your nook to listen to novels or short fiction? Do you have a favorite audiobook site?