What's the best way to get into "audio books". Can i just give american dollars to a website via one time transactions and receive mp3s in exchange or is it fucked up and weird like watching tv is these days?
I've got fucked up eyes and a learning disorder, but for reasons unknown to me I still want the people who put an outsized importance on literacy as a proxy for intelligence to think I'm smart.
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if you're a us resident and can get a doctor's note you can use the US Blind and Reading Disabled library, which doesn't have any waiting lists. There's still some weird DRM on them though.
If you want no DRM your best bet is to get audiobooks from a normal library then use "overdrive" to download them. it outputs normal mp3 files iirc.
@artemist in theory that sounds like the sort of thing I should be eligible for, but it sounds like getting access would be an expensive ordeal that has a moderately high chance of concluding with a doctor telling me I'm wasting their time and then charging me a few hundred bucks for it
@demofox I haven't watched TV regularly since they killed off NTSC. Every time I'm like "gee, I hear there's a new star trek maybe I should give this TV thing a try again" it turns out to be expensive and complicated and I give up trying to figure it out and go back to thinking about signed distance fields instead for entertainment
@demofox libro.fm is a competitor to Bezos's Audible monopsony that offers an app as well as DRM-free mp3 or m4b downloads.
And I've found their credits system is even more affordable than Audible's: credits are cheaper, never expire, and can be purchased without a membership, whereas Audible will terminate outstanding credits if you cancel your membership.
And you can designate a local bookstore to receive a portion of the proceeds.
@demofox Of course they don't have any audible-exclusive titles which may or may not be an issue for you depending on what authors you are interested in.
I haven't used them a ton yet because I actually don't buy most of my audiobooks anymore. My local library has a great digital collection so I check most of my audiobooks out from Libby/Overdrive/Hoopla.
A gargantuan, mind-altering comedy about the Pursuit of Happiness in AmericaSet in an addicts' halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwed-up family to come along in recent fiction, Infinite Jest explores essential …
@silverwizard In fairness, a human named Sean read out loud for 64 hours, acting characters and voicing a book that is usually consumed with _three_ bookmarks to keep track of a reader's place in the footnotes and the footnotes for the footnotes.
I don't think I can see all the replies here, so I'm very likely duplicating effort with my reply but I've been listening to audiobooks pretty much every day since like 2010 and I can recommend **Libro.fm**:
- a portion of the money you spend goes to a local book store (you can pick from a big list). I asked my local bookstore owner and they confirmed they do in fact get the money. - you can just buy the books with dollars (10-40$) or get a subscription (one book per month for ~15$, you can still buy more at normal price) - you have the option to download as mp3/m4a (at least the option was still there last I checked)
A large portion of audiobooks are locked to the audible (amazon) platform as they fund and/or buy exclusive rights to audio versions of stuff, but Libro manages to still maintain a pretty solid offering
Farah
in reply to aeva • • •jordan
in reply to aeva • • •aeva
in reply to aeva • • •aeva
in reply to aeva • • •aeva
in reply to aeva • • •Jan Schiefer
in reply to aeva • • •aeva
in reply to aeva • • •Coach Pāṇini ®
in reply to aeva • • •Definitely doesn’t take that long.
I have the CloudLibrary app:
apps.apple.com/us/app/cloudlib…
cloudLibrary
App StoreJason Howard
in reply to aeva • • •Klara in the hidden land
in reply to aeva • • •artemist
in reply to aeva • • •if you're a us resident and can get a doctor's note you can use the US Blind and Reading Disabled library, which doesn't have any waiting lists. There's still some weird DRM on them though.
If you want no DRM your best bet is to get audiobooks from a normal library then use "overdrive" to download them. it outputs normal mp3 files iirc.
BARD: Braille and Audio Reading Download National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled Downloadable Books and Magazines
nlsbard.loc.govaeva
in reply to artemist • • •artemist
in reply to aeva • • •Allan Chow
in reply to aeva • • •aeva
in reply to Allan Chow • • •Jan Schiefer
in reply to aeva • • •demofox
in reply to aeva • • •aeva
in reply to demofox • • •demofox
in reply to aeva • • •Eliot Lash
in reply to demofox • • •@demofox
libro.fm is a competitor to Bezos's Audible monopsony that offers an app as well as DRM-free mp3 or m4b downloads.
And I've found their credits system is even more affordable than Audible's: credits are cheaper, never expire, and can be purchased without a membership, whereas Audible will terminate outstanding credits if you cancel your membership.
And you can designate a local bookstore to receive a portion of the proceeds.
Same audiobooks. Different story.
Libro.fmEliot Lash
in reply to Eliot Lash • • •@demofox
Of course they don't have any audible-exclusive titles which may or may not be an issue for you depending on what authors you are interested in.
I haven't used them a ton yet because I actually don't buy most of my audiobooks anymore. My local library has a great digital collection so I check most of my audiobooks out from Libby/Overdrive/Hoopla.
aeva
in reply to Eliot Lash • • •silverwizard
in reply to aeva • •aeva
in reply to silverwizard • • •silverwizard likes this.
aeva
in reply to aeva • • •Infinite Jest Audiobook on Libro.fm
Libro.fmsilverwizard
in reply to aeva • •@aeva what. the. fuck. uh. wow
that's not been my experience with them. What the fuck is their infinite jest audiobook doing?!
I swear to you, all of my experiences with them have been with that of a company charging normal prices for normal books.
What the fuck.
aeva
in reply to silverwizard • • •silverwizard
in reply to aeva • •@aeva I think I normally see 15-20 bucks, but I'm also mostly buying kids books with Canadian dollars.
The cost of a credit if doing the subscription is pretty close to the average I see, with some cheaper
squirrelbaffler
in reply to aeva • • •aeva
in reply to squirrelbaffler • • •mvu
in reply to aeva • • •I don't think I can see all the replies here, so I'm very likely duplicating effort with my reply but I've been listening to audiobooks pretty much every day since like 2010 and I can recommend **Libro.fm**:
- a portion of the money you spend goes to a local book store (you can pick from a big list). I asked my local bookstore owner and they confirmed they do in fact get the money.
- you can just buy the books with dollars (10-40$) or get a subscription (one book per month for ~15$, you can still buy more at normal price)
- you have the option to download as mp3/m4a (at least the option was still there last I checked)
A large portion of audiobooks are locked to the audible (amazon) platform as they fund and/or buy exclusive rights to audio versions of stuff, but Libro manages to still maintain a pretty solid offering