Anyone into Audiobooks?

[Evil D]

I'm trying to figure out where/how to purchase audiobooks aside from physical copies, but it seems like everyone wants you to use an app these days and I'm not interested in streaming anything, I want a full download. I'm ok with purchasing, not looking for freebies but I absolutely do not want to be forced to use an app to listen to stuff that I purchased. Also, streaming is spotty at best as I sometimes don't have a good signal at work so an .mp3 file etc would be my first choice.

Ideas?

[mongo1958]

I'm trying to figure out where/how to purchase audiobooks aside from physical copies, but it seems like everyone wants you to use an app these days and I'm not interested in streaming anything, I want a full download. I'm ok with purchasing, not looking for freebies but I absolutely do not want to be forced to use an app to listen to stuff that I purchased. Also, streaming is spotty at best as I sometimes don't have a good signal at work so an .mp3 file etc would be my first choice.

Ideas?

The Kindle used to have an audible reader built in but I'm not sure how they are now.
This one looks like you need an audible subscription. I'm not sure if once a book is down loaded it will work off line or not.
https://www.akti.org/state-laws-regarding-automatics/

[Evil D]

I'm trying to figure out where/how to purchase audiobooks aside from physical copies, but it seems like everyone wants you to use an app these days and I'm not interested in streaming anything, I want a full download. I'm ok with purchasing, not looking for freebies but I absolutely do not want to be forced to use an app to listen to stuff that I purchased. Also, streaming is spotty at best as I sometimes don't have a good signal at work so an .mp3 file etc would be my first choice.

Ideas?

The Kindle used to have an audible reader built in but I'm not sure how they are know.
This one looks like you need an audible subscription. I'm not sure if once a book is down loaded it will work off line or not.
https://www.akti.org/state-laws-regarding-automatics/

Yeah I am specifically trying to avoid stuff like Audible. I literally just want an mp3 if possible even if it's a huge file. I may just have to buy them on disk and rip the files myself.

[Naperville]

#1 - There seem to be quite a few solutions for converting Audible books into MP3s

https://www.startpage.com/sp/search?que ... ge=english


#2 - The following should work if the content is being played through a browser. Works for me all of the time, but may not download all video content(may not download YouTube videos).

I use the Firefox web browser most of the time. One of the applications that I use to snag videos and streamed content is "Video DownloadHelper." It will download streamed files of any kind. I download podcasts this way. When you install the plug-in/extension to the browser depending on the content to be download, it may ask you if you want to install an additional extension for the browser if the content does not get handled by the default app.

It may be available for browsers other than Firefox.

Then you can do what you wish with the mp3's that you download.

Hopefully you can find a site with books streamed via a browser plug-in. Start the stream of the book and then start Video DownloadHelper and save in whatever format you want.

[TomAiello]

I listen to a lot of audiobooks, but they are all on dedicated apps. I mostly use Audible, but I also sometimes us Libby.

If you're willing to try that, the best free app is Libby, which connects to numerous public libraries (many of which will give you a library card online, without being a resident) and let you check out audiobooks from a ridiculously large selection.

I've found a few audiobooks online (basically all as free downloads) that let me download the file and then just import it into my music player, but the selection if fairly limited and quite specialized.

[aicolainen]

I've only used audible and the app used by our public libraries (Norway).
It's hard to get around the app-dependencies as long as you want to listen to copyrighted content.

As TomAiello points out, some books are puplished as free downloads in non proprietary formats, but that severely limits your selection of available titles.

I try to avoid Amazon in general, but as far as eBooks and audiobooks goes, there's only big tech involved anyways so I'm not hurting any small businesses by going to amazon. It's just easy. Almost all titles are published there, so you get a one stop shop with minimal time wasted on searching and getting the content to work with your player. My biggest gripe is their subscription plan. I generally favor podcast for listening while I do other things and don't find a lot of opportunities to listen to books. Even the one book a month pace that audible expects me to keep up with, is a bit optimistic for me.
I'm also a bit worried about the current trend of soft book burning, with age old books being re-written to make sure their modern audience isn't offended. I'm not in the habit of re-reading or re-listening old books, and if they're that good I usually have a paper copy, but I'm still not wild about the idea that something I've bought might be edited or changed after the fact, so in that regard I would also prefer if I could own the actual file. Don't see that happening though.

Both Audible and the public library app downloads the books and support offline playback. My biggest challenge is remembering to download while I'm still connected, but no file-format can compensate for lack of planning. I guess.

[Naperville]

The Internet Archive has a lot of FREE audio books.

https://archive.org/
https://archive.org/details/audio?&sort=-week&page=2