Since childhood, I’ve loved being read to. From my earliest memories of my Uncle Danny reading to me each night to me learning to read to him to help him fall asleep, to quicken my unsupervised nightly prowling sessions around his home office and computer builds, to listen to comedy cassette tapes, I have fond memories of them all. But ass it turns out, listening to the written word provided my life with numerous benefits far into adulthood.
This is why, despite being a bit of a book snob, I love audiobooks. As they help me bring some of the favorite books of my childhood to life by way of amazing actors, voice-over artists, and often the authors themselves. Listening enjoyment that can be enjoyed on long commutes or doing household chores like nightly dish duty. There’s also the added benefits of listening to audiobooks while multi-tasking at home, listening to audiobooks helps make performing chores more fun, they also turn hours of my day into fun that would otherwise be rather unenjoyable. As scrubbing the bathroom, putting laundry away or dusting is always easier when my audiobooks are on the play.
Did I also mention how perfect audiobooks help me get to sleep, calm anxiety? There’s that too. This is why I have come to think of audiobooks as vital parts of my self-care routine at home. Especially during the cold weather months each year. The only drawback? It can sometimes be difficult to enjoy the benefits of audiobooks if they don’t fit into your book budget. Which is why I’m sharing today some of my favorite ways to enjoy free audiobook titles.
Please note: The following resources are all free, legally-obtained audiobook sources. TheLadyPrefers2Save.com does not advise the illegal download of audiobook files. The theft of intellectual property is not only criminal, but it is also immoral. As it takes advantage of the authors, publishers, marketing teams, influencer reviewers, booksellers, distributors, shippers, and agents that work untold hours to bring your favorite stories to life. So when it comes to downloading free audiobooks, download legally. Authors deserve to be compensated for all the good they give to this world. And, of course, enjoy the following sources. Then, when you find a gem, share it online via GoodReads or your favorite review site. Pass your finds forward. And as always, enjoy the freedom and privileges of literacy and education. By way of the history of the spoken word.
Websites To Find Free, Reduced, or Inexpensive Audiobooks Online
Librivox
Librivox is a non-profit, online initiative that records and provides public domain books, released as free audiobooks. The site boasts over 10,000 projects, with a diverse set of titles ranging from War and Peace to Leaves of Grass to The Dream of the Red Chamber to Anne of Green Gables. You can find a free audiobook by searching by title, author, genre/subject, or language. You can also browse all the titles in the catalog, view only the most recent audiobooks, and subscribe to new releases as podcasts. Once you reach a book’s description page, you can read more about it and even listen to the chapters individually without having to download each of them. You can even volunteer to read sections for books-in-progress! Find out more about them, here.
Lit2Go
Lit2Go offers audiobooks, plays, short stories, and poems that have been tailored for use in classrooms. Along with each free audiobook, you’ll get citation information, playtime, and word count. accompanying PDF that can be used to read-along with text. Available as well on Android and ios. Find out more about this service, here.
Loyal Books
Loyal Books shares free audiobooks from titles in the public domain. You’ll find options like John Milton’s Paradise Lost and Sir Author Conan Doyle’s The Return of Sherlock Holmes, among others. Users can also submit reviews and read what others have had to say about each of the titles. Find out more about this service, here.
Mind Webs
Mind Webs is a hauntingly-good old-time radio dramatization of over 150 of the most classic science fiction short stories. You’ll find free science fiction stories from Ursula K. Le Guin, Kurt Vonnegut, and H.G. Wells, among others. Find out more about his service, here.
Open Culture
Open Culture’s site brings together high-quality cultural along with educational media to provide kids of all ages with a comprehensive lifelong learning community. With hosts of intelligent audio and video content to choose from, this site’s free choices make it fun to use as it is enriching for listeners of all walks of life. You can gain access to this high-quality content by clicking here.
OverDrive
OverDrive provides access to the most ebook and audiobook content you’ll find on this list, by pairing with local libraries. With over two million books and videos, and partner with more than 30,000 libraries nationally, you’ll find the newest audiobook releases through OverDrive. All free of charge through your local library’s Overdrive access for 7, 14, 0r 21-day loans. Books can also be downloaded by specific chapters alone, too. The app can also be linked to Android, desktop, and iOS services. To find out about this service, click here.
Scribl
Scribl provides users with a great option for newer releases, with many of the books read by the authors themselves. These free audiobooks are provided in a serialized form, so you can listen to small chunks that fit into your commute. My favorite site feature? Podiobooks encourages listeners to donate money directly to the authors of the books, with authors receiving 75% of donations. Including indie authors and artists. To find out about this site, click here.
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is the Cadillac of sites for free books that are in the public domain. Since they use books no longer under copyright, most of the books on the sites were written before 1923. So keep that in mind when searching for something to listen to. Including their section on human-read free audiobooks offers an even wider collection of books. Stand-outs include Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Colors of Space and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Project Gutenberg also offers computer-read audiobooks too. To find out more about this site, click here.
Spotify
No one loves Spotify more than me. So if you too are a playlist junkie, be sure to check out Spotify’s audiobooks playlist for a list of audiobooks that are always being added to by the service. Spotify is free to listen, or you can go premium if you don’t want the ads. Spotify’s list currently features The Great Gatsby audiobook, as well as 1984 and Pride and Prejudice. To find out more about the service, and its apps, click here.
Storynory
Storynory offers free audiobooks for kids, with a mix of classics, fairy tales, and original stories for kids. But for the kid at heart, you’ll also love classic titles like Brothers Grimm folk tales, Aesop’s fables, or stories from 1,001 Nights again. To find out more about this site, click here.
Sync
Every summer, readers looking for YA audiobooks can head over to SYNC, a free summer audiobook program for teens, sponsored by AudioFile Magazine and delivered by OverDrive. Also worth noting, each summer the site gives away two free audiobooks every week in the summer. Users can also sign up for alerts to know when new audiobooks are available. To find out more about his site, click here.
Bound
The Bound app, which downloads your audiobooks directly from a DropBox account, or other cloud-based services, onto your Bound app, for both iOS and Android, allows users to use bookmarks and can remember where you paused your book. And it’s simply prettier and easier to use. To find out more about this app, click here.
Google Play Books
Google Play Books allows you to listen to your purchased audiobooks across platforms and devices. That enables listeners to pick up where they left off on their Android device, iPhone, or desktop PCs. Audiobook controls allow you to skip ahead or scroll along the timeline, jump to chapters, and configure playback speed and a snooze timer. Unlike other audiobook services, Google Play Books doesn’t run on a monthly subscription, instead of allowing users to preview audiobooks and then buy what they want over the Google Play Books marketplace. However, you just pay monthly after the trial to keep downloading each of your enjoyed audiobooks. To find out about this app, and service, click here.
Digitalbook.io
Digitalbook.io is a free audiobook directory that makes it easy to find public domain audiobook downloads. Browse titles by the most popular or recently added audiobooks to find one you might like to listen to or look through the list of genres or authors. and even by specific quotes or chapters, too. You can also see trending audiobooks at Digitalbook.io’s homepage. There are currently over 100,000 items at Digitalbook.io, and while some are audiobooks, others are regular eBooks. To find out more about this site, click here.
Light Up Your Brain
Light Up Your Brain’s audiobook site is geared towards tech-savvy kids aged 5-15 and a free text version is available with each audiobook. Most audiobooks are under 10 minutes and most titles will provide PDF transcripts of the audiobooks as well. Including classic audiobooks, ready-to-be-steamed directly from the website. Keep in mind, all titles must be downloaded individually, as there is currently no group downloader available and all audiobooks must be downloaded by right-clicking on each title to be saved as Mp3 files. As the site does not host stylized download or hover buttons. To find out more about this site, click here.
ThoughtAudio
Thought Audio is another classic-minded audiobook site featuring classic works of literature and philosophy books available for download as free audiobooks. You can browse the whole list or search for books, as well as see them in order of those that were most recently added to the collection. To get these audiobooks you have to either listen to them on the ThoughtAudio website or download them in installments by right-clicking each part that you want to save. PDF transcripts for these audiobooks are also available for download. Some audiobooks are available in multiple audio formats. The perfect place for classic audiobooks for writers, college students, and seminary students alike. To find out more about this site, click here.
Learn Out Loud
LearnOutLoud’s self-development focused free audiobooks allow users to find practical information by way of thousands of free audiobooks, categorized by genre, including documentaries, courses, speeches, and more. Keeping in mind, a free user account is needed for some audiobooks and other titles may be subject to trial offers. Most titles can be sorted by recently added, random, most popular, or alphabetically. There are also specific categories that you can choose to find only those types of free audiobook downloads, such as Science, Technology, Self Development, Languages, Business, and Travel. To find out more about this site, click here.
Hoopla
Hoopla, much like OverDrive, provides users with various digital media services offered by local public libraries. Allowing users to borrow movies, music, audiobooks, ebooks, comics, and TV shows to enjoy on your device of choice. Including various computers, tablets, e-readers, or smartphones. Even on your TV or smart tv and other iOS and Android devices as well as Roku, Chromecast, Fire TVs. With Hoopla, there’s no waiting for titles. As selections can be streamed immediately or downloaded to phones or tablets for offline enjoyment later. Featuring hundreds of thousands of titles to choose from, with more being added daily, this site brings the best of your local library into your home. With tons of titles at your fingertips, anytime and anywhere. As with the OverDrive app, users need a valid library card, and your local library must be signed up to use the service in order for users to get started renting titles from home. To find out more about the site, click here.
NewFixtion
NewFixtion is in a category all to itself. It doesn’t have many titles, but what it does have are original stories delivered in daily episodes, much like daily radio shows of the 1940s. With each episode is voiced by trained actors, which gives it a more rounded feeling. It’s really more like listening to an old-time radio drama than simply having a book read to you. You can’t download titles from NewFixtion, though. Titles are listed through your desktop or mobile browser. To find out more about the site, click here.
ejunto
Fans of American history will love ejunto’s library of historic media. Users can access, download, and listen on iTunes or download as an MP3 through a podcast library of resourcing links. While titles cannot be downloaded in bulk, rather on a chapter-by-chapter downloading basis, the site is still a great resource for history lovers of all ages. at a time. To find out more about the site, click here.
YouTube
Similar to Spotify, YouTube is not primarily a good source for audiobooks because most of the content is music and videos. However, you might have luck finding some really great free audiobooks on YouTube if you know how to search for them. Such as searching for a title name followed by “audiobook.” Users can also try Reddit. Which hosts genre-specific directories for finding YouTube-centric audiobook files. Specifically for sharing which videos on YouTube are actually audiobooks. Once you find an audiobook you like, and so long as you know it’s public domain or is legal to download, you can download just the audio from the video with a YouTube to MP3 converter. Browse YouTube audiobooks, here.
Digital Book
DigitalBook, formerly Librophile, lets you search through a database of public domain books from places like Librivox, Gutenberg, Open Library, and also includes books from Amazon and Audible. Although not all books are free, a large number of them are, and they boast a catalog of over 100,000 free audiobooks and eBooks. If you sign up for a free membership, you can save books on a personal bookshelf to read later without having to download. Click here to find out more about this site.
Audio Archive
Internet Archive is a non-profit archive of internet sites and other cultural artifacts, made available to users in digital form. It’s one of the larger and more well-known sites out there for access pretty much anything in the public domain. Providing free access to an archive of over 4 million audio recordings, 11 million books and texts, and 3 million videos. To find out more about this site, click here.
RBDigital
RBDigital offers an extensive collection of audiobooks, magazines, and eBooks, with the largest independent collection of unabridged audiobooks. To find out more about this site, click here.
Your Cloud Library
YourCloudLibrary is an application for Windows, Mac, iPhone, and Android that offers access to millions of ebooks and audio to download. cloudLibrary by bibliotheca works with a huge range of eReading devices, and we’re adding support all the time. Right now, you are able to view and download content on iOS and Android recognized devices. To find out more about this service, click here.
Amazon Audiobooks
If You’re an Amazon Prime Subscriber, you can get free audiobooks there, too! If you’re an Amazon Prime member you can get unlimited access to a selection of free audiobooks each month in addition to Prime eligible Kindle ebooks. Keep in mind, Amazon doesn’t make it particularly clear where to find the list of audiobooks currently free to borrow for Prime members. This means you’ll need to download the ebook before you can get the audiobook from separate lists of available audiobooks, downloading each individually.
To get started, here’s the list of Books with Audible Narration free for Prime members in 2019. Prime eligible ebooks show a Prime logo in the buy box that says, Included with your membership. Books that also have a matching Prime-eligible audiobook will show a box that says, Read and Listen for Free. If the audiobook isn’t part of Prime it will just say, Read for Free.
When searching for free Amazon audiobook titles, be sure to search and select Prime-eligible books. Including titles with matching audiobooks available with Prime, as it will automatically be available once you borrow the ebook. Fire tablet users you can easily find Prime audiobook content from the menu of the Audible section where it lists Prime Benefits.
Audible Channels are another way to get free audio content with Prime. Audible Channels include original short-form audio content (podcasts), along with playlists, and a selection of audiobooks to stream anytime. All options to help you find free audiobooks from Amazon.
Kobo
Kobo, known for its e-reader services and devices, is also home to 5 million ebooks and audiobooks with an ever-growing catalog. Kobo might be one of the biggest competitors battling Amazon’s Kindle line. Free 30-day trial, cancel anytime. $12.99/month for an audiobook subscription after that point. Kobo’s audiobook player covers your basics, with a timeline scrubber bar, time skip buttons, chapter navigation, playback speed configuration, and a snooze timer. The app provides cross-platform syncing, a customizable ebook reader, and a dedicated audiobook player. New users can sign up for a $5.00 additional discount on their first ebook purchase. The site also offers many new, free selections, too. To find out this site, click here.
Bookmobile
Bookmobile is a service, for both Android and iOS that specializes in DRM-free audiobooks and DRM-locked content from iTunes and Audible, as well as DRM-free content, ripped from CDs or downloaded, including M4B and MP3 audiobooks. This app features a control panel designed to keep you from easily losing your place and includes drive and sleep modes, as well as supporting background playback. Extra features include a custom bookmarking feature that can automatically remember where you last stopped, playback speed controls, and AirPlay support. The free trial lasts for 60 days and allows you to import three audiobooks; iOS users will be charged $3.99 after free trial if not canceled. Users can even weekly free audiobooks for users who utilize their sign-up newsletter service. To find out about this app, click here.
Public Libraries
No longer do you need to leave the house in order to borrow a book from the library, as you can now even borrow public library books from your kindle, but you may still want to. As going to your local library can still gain you access to varied titles as well as the opportunity to request new releases by way of interlibrary loans from other branches. Local libraries also host a litany of other free services open to the general public, too! To find a library near you, click here.
Audiobooks, no matter if you’re listening to them on your commutes, while we’re cleaning the house, running, or, even while cooking, it’s always worth your listening time. Thankfully, these 30 websites, apps, directories, and sources can help offer thousands and thousands of free audiobooks for you online this season. That’s a lot of books. Get to listening!
Finally, be sure to share your favorite places to get audiobooks in the comments below. Or just say hi. That’s fun, too!
