Audio Books Free and Easy
john posted in technologies on July 11th, 2006
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We listen to a lot of audio books around my house. I listen while driving, and for relaxation, and sometimes on sick days. |
| Now you can down load audiobooks for free. | You’ll need a player, a library, and a connection. |
| Listening to a good book with a good reader is a lovely experience, and you can argue that books are at their best read aloud. |  |
| For some reason the market of audiobooks is controlled by a few publishers who charge ridiculous amounts of money for audio versions of throw-away paperbacks. Thrillers are often $25-40, and the rentals are in the $10+ range. My local public library has a limited selection on cassette and now a few on CD. Cassettes often have a bad tape, and tape players aren’t as common as they used to be. And woe unto you if you lose a tape book: I once had to pay $170 to replace a so-called library edition.
Enter mp3 players and Netlibrary. |
Amazon buy audio books online Audible buy books and podcasts. Recorded Books publisher that rents too. Audio-to-go rentals. Simply Audiobooks more rentals. |
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Gizmos: The ubiquitous iPod and other brands of digital music player have displaced the Walkman. They are smaller, lighter, sound better, hold vast amounts, and can be organized into a personal jukebox called a playlist. Generically they are called “mp3 player” after a popular recording format, mp3. The copyright holders of the audiobooks do sell downloads that will play on mp3 players through sites like Audible.com, but the prices still range from a few dollars to $50 for the latest Harry Potter, with a $15 - $30 average. Netlibrary access through your local public library solves the cost problem. |
The songs that kids download and play, mp3s, are computer audio files. An audiobook is just a very long audio file that plays on a computer or mp3 player. Rio Forge player |
| If your local library provides access, or you can sign up with one that does, and you buy a player for less than $100, and you have a Windows PC with a network connection, you can have all the audiobooks you want for free. |
Netlibrary is an Internet service that distributes audiobooks free for public libraries. Your library signs up with them, and they do all the work of providing a web site that you can log into to get books. The books are digital, so you need an mp3 player to listen to them. See Gizmos above. |
| But. What’s famously so easy Grandma can figure it out with iTunes and an iPod, is not quite so simple with these Netlibrary downloads.
They use a proprietary Microsoft copyright licensing system that is very hard to figure out but fortunately not too hard to use. I bought this setup for my wife, and figured it out for her. and now I’ll give you the recipe. |
 I bought: Creative Zen Nano Plus 1gig size. |
| Recipe: | |
Keep your PC connected to the Internet the whole time, because the software is going to call up the Netlibrary website to get a license. |
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plus your library has to have an arrangement with Netlibrary Go to your library’s web site or call and ask the reference librarian. |
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( not an iPod ! You can also play these directly on your Windows PC or laptop without a separate player) Look for these jargon words: “WMA drm” “plays for sure” “bookmarking” “flash” “mp3 player” If you have any confusion, just get a kid, or a clerk in a computer store to help. Look to the Q&A at the end for explanations of what these words mean, and why Apple players like the ubiquitous iPod won’t work for these free audiobooks. Get some decent headphones for a few bucks, the earbuds that come with the player are terrible. The Creative Zen Nano player works well and is tiny - about the size of a disposable lighter. Remember: No Apple brand player will work. The Rio brand models iRiver, Forge, and the Creative brand players also appear to be able to play these Netlibrary audiobooks. Load the latest Windows Media Player software on your computer. Download it from Microsoft or load from the CDROM that comes with your player. Then load the software that comes with your player. |
Rio Carbon Microsoft Plays for Sure 
NewEgg |
No, you can’t go straight to Netlibrary until you create an account with them using your library. |
 NetLibrary web site |
The license will let you play the book for 21 days, or whatever length of time your library arranged. The selection is excellent. |
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If you have dial-up (uses the phone line) you might try downloading the book at the library, where they have a fast connection. I don’t know yet whether the radio-quality download will work on my player. If so, it solves the download issue because its a much much smaller file. |
 .. ..  Don’t download straight from Netlibrary to the player, if it’s a Creative brand player. |
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The help and instructions for transferring the audiobook from your PC to your player may be just awful. Netlibrary is no help, Microsoft is useless, and the maker of our player, Creative, was also clueless. The problem is the special license that these files have. It’s really easy to transfer a normal file to your player, with music files or un-licensed files it’s a snap. |
But these Netlibrary books must be transferred using special software or they won’t play. |
Plug in the player to a USB port on your PC. Yes, it is a good idea to turn it on. A battery is required, too. |
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| Open Creative Media Source ( not Windows Media Explorer ). There are two panes at the right of the window. Set one to your PC hard drive where the book file is. Set the other to your player.
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Double-click the file on the hard drive.
You may have to login first as the program calls the web site to get permission. Yes you will have to be connected to the Internet the whole time…..
Then highlight the file on your PC and choose the arrow between the two panes to transfer to the player. If it works, you’ll get a dialogue box saying “…transferring….” and it may take a few minutes. |
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| Transferring from the PC to the player…
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| Last: Listen to your book. | Once it’s transferred with the license, unplug the player from your PC, insert the headphones, and you should be able to listen to the audiobook just like any other audio or music file. If the book refuses to play, you did something wrong with the transfer. Start over again. |
Q & A: |
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| Why you can’t use an Apple player like the iPod: | The vast majority of people like the iPod best among audio players, but it can’t play these files. The licensing system is a Microsoft product, using Windows Media Player, which doesn’t run on the Mac or on iPods. If this makes you want to smack a Microsoft head together with an Apple head to knock some sense into them, you’ll have to wait for a million others in line first. |
| Bookmarking: | Bookmarking means the ability to remember where you stopped in the book, and return to it automatically. Since a book might be 6, 8 or even 16 hours long, you don’t want to fast forward through it. Apparently not all players can do this. |
| WMA DRM: | WMA is a Microsoft audio file format. In this case they have added the ability to license a time limit on playing. DRM is the acronym for Digital Rights Management. Google it, lots has been written about the whole idea. It is very unpopular with my kind of folks. |
| Plays for Sure: | Plays for Sure is a Microsoft trademark for the licensing system. The name makes you think, “If the system works so well, how come you need to remind us that it might not play for sure?” Imagine a car company motto: “Drives for sure.” Nevertheless, you need to use a PC and a player that support it. |
| Flash: | Players come in two types: smaller “flash” and larger “hard drive.” If you need a larger player for other storage, then ignore the advice and go for the hard drive. “Flash” is a special memory chip which acts like a small hard drive. SD cards, Memory Sticks, flashcards all use this type of memory. |
| MP3: | MP3 is an audio file format used very widely. It returns good quality while using much less disk space than a CD audio file. Just for the record, there are many audio formats. |
| Radio-quality: | Radio-quality means an audio format with a much smaller file size to download faster. Sound quality is more like radio than a CD, hence the name. It should be just fine for an audiobook, but I haven’t gotten it to work yet on my player. |
| What happens when the license runs out? | Well it won’t fry itself and send smoke out of your player. It just won’t play anymore. You can delete a book at anytime. |
| Will other brands of player work? | Look for Windows Plays for Sure logo, but it’s still hard to be sure. I asked a clerk at CompUSA. Rio seems to make a player that’s reported to work. |
| How big is the Zen player? | Isn’t this a little like naming something a ‘Presbyterian’ car? Anyway it’s about the size of a disposable lighter. Use your reading glasses to see the screen. |
| How many books are there in Netlibrary? | Once you open an account, you can browse Netlibrary, there are 1300+ for my library. |
| Do you need a credit card? | No, just your library card. |
| What are the gotchas? | The player must subscribe to the Windows Media WMA DRM license scheme. The player has to be able to do bookmarking, so it keeps your place. The player has to do 32kbps audio ( most or all do). Your downloads are going to be slow over a dial-up. Maybe too slow to get a whole file. The licensing and proprietary format gets in the way of a great idea. Must be a member of a public library with a Netlibrary account. Windows required. |
| Does it play music too? | Yes just like any other player. Oh it also has an FM radio, and records with a microphone. |
| Oddball uses? | Listen in the car using an FM car adapter or a cassette adapter for the car stereo.
Certified to be useful for long sessions at dentist’s office. A Hospital patient might like it. Voice recording, how about 15 hours of record time or more? Transfer files just like any thumb drive. FM radio built-in to the player, too. |
You know of a better or cheaper player, or a Linux or Macintosh solution?
You think I left some information out or got something wrong?
Leave a comment and we’ll edit the post to include it.
November 7th, 2006 at 5:43 am
thank you john,i face a problem while setting up the license to play a file.many thanks for netlibrary for providing free audio books.these audio books are
not working in apple player.
http://www.karaditales.com