Cheap Audiobook Rental Sites - Hire and Rent Audio Books For Ipod and More

Spoken word books are great to listen to in the tub, on the road, while working out on your motorised treadmill or whilst doing general household chores. They're a versatile alternative entertainment for everyone and an absolute godsend for any bibliophile who is losing or lost their sight or just generally finds it uncomfortable to hold books any more for long periods.

Audiobook rental clubs allow you to rent books on CD, tape, MP3 and other formats with no late fees, no due dates and no other hidden costs. You pay a monthly subscription fee and you can rent as many spoken books as you can listen your way through in a month. Postage is free in both directions and you can put the prepaid mailer out in your home mailbox for your postman to pick up so there is no need to stand in line at your local post office either.

In fact, if you have even been a subscribed to any DVD movie rental by mail sites like Netflix or Blockbuster, then you already have a pretty good idea how these audiobook renting sites work too. Some even allow you to rent paperback books as well if that takes your fancy, which is ideal if you share a house with other book lovers who would rather physically read than listen to books.

There are a number of excellent sites for renting audio books CDs, tapes and MP3 files. The services offered by each are quite similar but with a few differences which might make one more appealing to others. The nice thing is, you are never locked in to any nasty contract with these sites (unless you choose to pay for a full year which might offer a discount too) so if you are not satisfied you can cancel any time you like. In addition, many also offer free audiobook rental trial offers which allow you to check out their services before you actually make a commitment to spending your hard earned cash on their services.

So recommended audiobook rental clubs are listed below.

Books Free is a great site which offers you the chance to rent paperback novels alongside your audiobook rental subscription which is nice for those of us who enjoy both types of media.

Choosing to hire audiobooks online from this website works much like something like Netflix. You sign up to a subscription plan of your choice, which will determine how many you want to hire out at any given time from 1 up to 6. You then choose which audiobooks you want to listen to and they'll send them to you in the mail delivering them right to your front door. You listen to them and then mail them back to receive your next audiobook choice by return of post. It's simple, there are no late fees, no due dates and you never pay postage in either direction, that is all included in the subscription plan pricing which starts around $22-$23 per month.

You are not limited in the number of audiobooks you can receive in a month under any of the monthly subscription plans offered by Books Free, only by how many you can listen to and the speed on the postal service. Books Free has over 26,000 audio books in stock, so you'll be spoiled for choice at this site. You can also rent on what they call an a la carte basic, chosing to avoid a subscription plan altogether and picking a new spoken book any time you want one but if you listen to more than 1 a month, you'll probably save money with a subscription plan.

Download the free audiobook they offer from a choice of over 7,000 audio books as part of their free two week trial of their audio book rental service. eMusic operates differently to other audiobook subscription sites in that their model gives you credits to spend on downloadable audiobooks in MP3 format which is a pretty universal format which should work on all iPod, Zune etc. style devices as well as computer media players etc.

The MP3 audiobook downloads are given a credit value so you use your credits to buy books each month. A subscription plan gives you a number of credits to use each and every month, but unused credits do expire at the end of a monthly period so make sure you do use them up or you'll lose them and will have wasted money.

If you are into the classics then there are some great resources out there to pick up downloadable audiobooks free online with no catches and no problems with the law. There are some projects out there which are working hard to put out of copyright books like Alice in Wonderland, Dracula, War of the Worlds and other classic books into an audio format so you can download and listen to them on you ipod or other mp3 player. These are not typically recorded by professional voice actors and sometimes the recording quality feels a little sketchy, and you may find different chapters read by different readers in the same book on occasion, but for the most part, these are actually quite excellent...especially since they are 100% free and totally legal audiobook downloads.

Librivox - large catalogue and always looking for volunteer readers if you'd like to give back.