Audiobooks

[dl8860]

Looking to get hold of the Stephen fry audio book version of the complete Harry Potter set for my wife, she's due to give birth in September and she's said she'd love to listen to them all during late night feed sessions and the like.

I've never had an audio book before, wondering what the best format/implementation is for this. I'm thinking not cds as we don't have a CD player, I've seen some small portable ones with speakers but that seems like a faff and a bit of a waste for a one time thing.

Is there a way just to get the audio files on her phone? She uses an iPhone, I still have no clue how easy it is to sideload an mp3 from a digital download, or if you need to do it via iTunes or a certified apple app? Can anyone shed light on that?

And if not, is there an app I could use? I know there's audible by amazon but that seems like a subscription thing which I don't really want to get into.

Cheers

 

[checjb]

Go to your library (online, I assume) and sign up for their audiobook system. My local library use BorrowBox and you install the app, login and then you can listen from your phone. All the HP books are available on my system.
If not, Audible is your friend but it'll cost you.

 

[Werewolf]

Audible is probably the most obvious one for audio books on your mobile, it can be subscription or it can be standalone, there are usually offers for free credits/free introduction for X months for it and you can cancel at any time whilst retaining access to any books you've bought using cash or credits (you can take out a sub using a free offer, use the free credits then buy some more* to get the rest of the books, cancel the sub but retain the books). The only content you lose when cancelling a sub is the "free to subscriber" stuff.
If you've bought the ebooks from amazon you may find you can get the audio versions at a much reduced cost even without an audible sub.

Basically audible lets you keep your books without an active sub but buying with a sub is cheaper as they tend to price the books three ways:
1: No sub, no kindle version on a linked account, cash price. Can be £20+
2: No sub but you've got the kindle version already and they offer a discount because of that. Can be anything from £3
3: Sub. You get the choice of paying with a credit (effectively £8 for the one credit monthly plan, or £6 if you buy 3 credits), their subscriber cash price (might be £12-20), or if you've got the kindle version it might be a highly reduced cash price (like #2).

IIRC there is currently a free HP prequel book on audible for free (tales of beadle teh bard?).

A quick look suggests that the HP books are about £18-£30 each or a credit each if you buy whilst a subscriber (and you'll retain them when you end the sub).



To get an mp3 audiobook onto the phone IIRC there are standalone apps that will play them that are specialised for it, but you could simply load them into itunes or whatever and used your normal phone music player app, however if you're not careful it can result in you getting a chapter of a book playing when you set the music app to randomise your music, and most mp3 player apps don't seem to retain the position of the track when you restart them (which is no issue for music, but for an audiobook it's a PITA).
VLC may do the job if it's on the iphone as it can remember the position you'd got to on videos (not tried it on audio) and offers to continue, so if you can get that and put the audiobooks into their own folder it might do the job.

To get the audio files, short of audible etc or hoping your local library does a loan scheme with digital audio books, you'd have to get the CD's (if they do them, an unabridged audio book can be 30+ hours**) and rip them prior to transfering them to the phone as your legal options.

*When you run out of credits (either the free intro ones, or the normal monthly ones) you can buy 3 additional ones for £18.

**It's no coincidence that unabridged audio books have only really become cost effective with the advent of digital audio and mobile phones, as the cost of pressing the discs/copying the tapes used to be prohibitive so virtually everything was abridged.

 

[dl8860]

Go to your library (online, I assume) and sign up for their audiobook system. My local library use BorrowBox and you install the app, login and then you can listen from your phone. All the HP books are available on my system.
If not, Audible is your friend but it'll cost you.

This seems almost too good to be true but I've just tried it and it works! Is there any hitch I'm missing? Thanks so much for the tip.

Ah I can see the audiobook for Chamber of Secrets says available 22/07/20, is that date because of the number of other people that have it checked out? Do they work off some arbitrary limit of number of people that can have an ebook loaned out at once?

 

[checjb]

Yeah, that seems to be because someone already has that particular "book" checked out. Given the electronic format I can only assume that's a rights issue as it's not like there is a physical copy being passed around.
Glad you've got it sorted.

 

[Lupis]

This seems almost too good to be true but I've just tried it and it works! Is there any hitch I'm missing? Thanks so much for the tip.

Ah I can see the audiobook for Chamber of Secrets says available 22/07/20, is that date because of the number of other people that have it checked out? Do they work off some arbitrary limit of number of people that can have an ebook loaned out at once?

They will have a number of licences for each ebook and they can only loan out that number at any one time. Someone may end their loan of it early, and you could get access to it sooner than the date listed, but that's the date the person taking it out (and possibly the next people in the queue as well) would have until to finish it, and they may well keep it for the full duration.