[gui-talk] Fwd: Audiobooks, where to get them for free?

[Steve Pattison]

From:    David elephant at tele2.no
To:      WE English mailing list gw-info at gwmicro.com

The below mesage was found on the mailing list, of  the all accessible media 
player MaPlEr. Although it refers to certain features of MaPlEr, I guess 
most of the info might be of interest to the users on this list as well, no 
matter what player you are currently using.

In case, you have not yet checked it out, give the newest version (v1.15) of 
MaPlEr a try. It has features, that you won't find in any other software, 
and best of all, it is build by and for blind users, so you will never have 
to worry accessibility conflicts. You will find it at:
 http://mar-dy.com/MaPlEr/MaPlEr.php

Enjoy!

----- Original Message ----- 

As you all might have noticed, MaPlEr is equipped with a number of 
features, specially taylored for reading audiobooks. The 'bookmarking' 
capability, just to mention one. Then we have stuff like the speed and 
pitch adjustment. And, you might also have noticed a couple of choices 
under the Special menu, and wondered, what they are for. I here have in 
mind, the 'skip at beginning', and 'skip at the end' features. They were 
specially designed, due to user request, and with reading audiobooks in 
mind. Yet, Personally, I have found them particularly useful, when trying 
to edit certain parts of music, of which, I'd rather be back with more 
info, in a later email.

Getting audiobooks in an electronic format, might not always be too easily 
achieved. The only place on the net, that I know of, which offers a bigger 
selection for sale, would be Audible. You might right away be familiar 
with that site, and in such a case, you know that it is delivering its 
contents in a specially COPYRIGHTED format - the Audible format (having 
the .A extension to its files). Audible has quite strict copyright rules, 
and even when comes to hardware players, only a VERY FEW players on the 
market, do have the capablility to play Audible books. So, asking the 
Mar-Dy team, to ever implement Audible playback in their software, would 
be something close to 'in vain'. Although I don't want to clutter this 
list with a long discussion on why, and why not, Audible does it this way, 
I still want to point it out, so that users will know, why this will not 
come true, until the day, Audible would change their scheme. And, after 
all, how many people would ever buy any books, if they were only allowed 
to read them in a particular branded chair. Or, how often would you be 
eating burgers, if you only were allowed doing so, if you sit at a given 
table, listening to one particular song, and eating within a predefined 
time frame. Well, you see, there is not too much reasons for offering 
Audible any more space, as an alternative in this mail.

My heading, though, did state, where to get audiobooks. And, even for 
FREE. I will point you to a few places, that offers such material, fully 
legal. The selection on all of these sites are ever growing. Due to the 
copyright rules, and the fact they are offering the material for free, it 
tends to be older books. But, it is a nice way, of getting your hands on 
the good old classics, and keep them all legally in yor library. And, with 
MaPlEr, you can even build one playlist for each book, which in practical 
life means, you can read as many books you want in parallel, and simply 
always refind your last read spot, in each and everyone of them. Yet 
another of those useful features, that the Mar-Dy team has been kind 
enough to implement, and which is quite beneficial.

The biggest - and fastest growing - place to find the free audiobooks, 
would be at Librivox.org.
Librivox, is getting their material from volunteers, all over the globe. 
In other words, you will listen to a book, all read by a real human. Yet, 
you will encounter all kinds of Flavored English. One small drawback, 
would be that one and same book, might have its different parts - or 
chapters - read by different persons. Well enough, you won't get tired, by 
listening to the same voice for hours. Yet, just when you have got used to 
the way of reading of one narrator, here the next chapter comes, and that 
with another voice, and somehow different style. On the other hand, you 
get your ears on material, that you might not have heard before - or at 
least, not for many years - and all of that in a modern-day version and 
recording. Be aware, that the different chapters might have been recorded 
at different levels, which means you will have to  adjust the volume 
slightly from one section to the other. Note: the new MEI (Mardy Extended 
Information) feature, found under the File menu in V1.15, is specially 
handy here. IF you have trouble in figuring how to use it, let us know, 
and we will be glad to edducate you on that one.

One big benefit of Librivox, is their offering the books in two ways. 
Either you can browse their library, and download the books you want. They 
all come as zip files, and usually ain't too big. With a good highspeed 
connection, you will be able to download several books in a short time. 
Yet, even with a dial-up connection, you won't be spending too much time, 
in getting your hands on the goodies. The other alternative, is to 
subscribe to their Podcast. All you then need to do, is to keep an eye on 
your podcast folder, and enjoy the new stuff. Yet, this alternative, gives 
you little control on what you will get, since you will get, what they 
decide to publish through the podcast. Try, and find which alternative you 
will like the best.


The other place to go, for getting your hands on free audiobooks, would be 
at
 http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:The_Audio_Books_Project
This is a sub-department of the EBook website of Gutenberg.org, a nice 
place, if you want to download the book in plain text. The audiobooks 
found here, comes in two flavors:

1. HUMAN READINGS. The books in this section, are - as the term says - 
read by volunteer humans. Some of the same applies here, as with the 
Librivox books. In fact, some of the books found here, are actual links 
from the Librivox site.
2. COMPUTER GENERATED AUDIOBOOKS. Again, the term might say it all. These 
books have been run through a Text-To-Speech softwre (so-called TTS), and 
recorded. For all screen reader users, you will have your feelings, when 
finding that same Eloquence voice, that you know all too well from your 
computer, sitting and reading good old books aloud for you. Yet, it is an 
alternative, and might just be the right thing, in given cases. I have 
tried it, and it is fully workable, to read a book by use of electronic 
voice. Besides, some libraries for the blind, around the globe, do offer 
certain material in electronic voiced versions; so you might already be 
familiar with this flavor of narrator.
All-in-all, this is one place to check for your favorites.


The third alternative, that I want to point you to, would be the 
AudiobooksForFree.com website. The biggest benefits of this site, is 
actually numbering into no less than three:
1. They offer you a FREE version of their books.
2. You can decide to buy the book, and get it in a better sound quality.
3. The whole book would be read by ONE, real person; all through.
The free version of the book, is recorded at 8khz. For the ones of you, 
who do not know what this means, it simply means a rather bad recording 
quality. Hardly the way you want to read a thousand pages. Yet, if you 
only want to read a short story, or if you want to know a bit more of the 
story before buying the book, you might find this alternative simply 
perfect. With the right adjustment on the new equalizer of MaPlEr, you 
might even find it bearable for quite a while, to read these books; in the 
free version.
The moement you find, that this is a book you REALLY want, you can decide 
to buy it. It will come as a downloadable, and you have the chance of 
choosing which quality you want. The higher sound quality, the higher the 
price. Yet, the most expensive one, which is CD quality, would only cost 
you a few dollars for each book; no matter the length of the book. The 
prices range from 5 to 8 dollars, for the whole book, depending on the 
actual sound quality. But even if you decide to go for the most expensive 
one; where else would you get a CD quality book, read in a professional 
manner, by a real human, for as little as 8 US dollars? And, if you want 
it pre-burned on a CD, and mailed to you, you get the choice to do so, for 
only USD $15; still a fair enough price.
One further feature of the AudiobooksForFree company, is that they offer 
for you, to buy the complete selection, right away. For only USD $100, you 
get ten DVD disks, shipped right in your mailbox, holding the whole 
selection, all sorted.You will have something like 30GB or more, of 
audiobooks; litterally holding a library of hundreds of books.
The readers of AudiobooksForFree, are GOOD readers. You will find the same 
quality in reading, as you are familiar with, from your Library for the 
blind, locally. In given cases, I would say, the reader is even doing a 
WONDERFUL job, giving the text its full attributes. Although you might end 
up spending a few dollars on the project, I do claim this alternative the 
very best, if you are really looking for building your audiobook 
collection.


Of course, you would have other choices, to get your hands on good 
audiobooks. Itunes, do offer a sellection, and it still is fair enough 
pricing; although you would have to look a bit deeper into your wallet, 
than what is the case with the books from the sites mentioned above. And, 
you could always browse EBay, find books on CDs, and rip them into a set 
of MP3 files, that you can play with MaPlEr.

Lastly, I want to point you to the nextup.com website. Although NextUp 
does not provide audiobooks, they provide the software TextAloud. This is 
a TTS (Text-To-Speech). This means, you can load a textfile - or a set of 
textfiles, into the editor of the software. You then choose the voice from 
the selection installed on your computer, and can have the whole text 
recordeed with that voice, in one big, or several smaller MP3 files; all 
saved onto your hard disk, or hardware mp3 player. And, WOOPSY! you have 
your own produced audiobook. NextUp, is well aware of screen reader users, 
and their software is all accessible. It is shareware, giving you the 
chance of testing it for free for 15 days, fully functional. If you decide 
you like it, it is less than USD $30, to buy.


CONCLUSION:
On both Librivox, and AudiobooksForFree, you are welcomed to send requests 
for books, that you would like to find in the collection, but which are 
not yet available. These requests will be put on the wishlist, and 
somewhere down the stream, you might realize they have been recorded, and 
made available.
From both these sites, you will find the books having one anoying 
drawback. Each file - meaning every chapter usually - starts with an 
introductory phrase. On AudiobooksForFree, this phrase is usually just 
about 7 seconds in duration. From the Librivox site, you will find the 
files having a phrase of approximately 18 seconds. Reading a book like 
Robinson Crusoe, with no less than 58 files, from AudiobooksForFree, will 
at least ensure one thing: You know that introductory phrase by heart. 
This was the very outspring, for the 'skip at beginning' feature, found 
under the Special menu in MaPlEr. Simply choose this feature, set it to 
7seconds, and your AudobooksForFree book, will read all through, omitting 
all these bothersome introductories. And, since the Mar-Dy team developed 
this feature, they included the 'skip at the end' feature, in same token. 
Useful, if your audiobooks come with the phrase at the end of each file - 
which would be more rare.
Although the selection on the above mentioned websites is usually of an 
older date, you will surely find stuff that might interest you. 
Personally, I found it specially helpful, in increasing my English skills, 
since I could get my hands on good narrated English literature, and could 
hear the pronunciation; a benefit that people who buy the paper version of 
the book do not have. It was fun, to read some of the books from my 
childhood over again, this time in English. At least at the Librivox page, 
you will also find given material in other languages; and I do hold, this 
is the case on Gutenberg's site as well (although that is taken from my 
slippery memory). I do encourage each audiobook lover out there, to browse 
the above mentioned websites, and see for themselves. Most truely, you 
will find, that neither of them fully meet your expectations, but taken 
all into consideration, they will  fill-in each other, leaving you with a 
rather good library.

Finally, if you want a hard copy of an audiobook - new release, or older 
stuff - on tape, CD or MP3 CD, the website at:
   http://www.audiobookbargains.co.uk/index.asp
will be a good place to search. They are fairly priced, and although not 
complete, will give you a good selection of more modern-day  literature.


I hope this mail - although being rather long - has proven beneficial and 
helpful for some of you, who love to listen to audiobooks. And,  if you 
are a lover of good radio series, and wonder where to find them for a fair 
price, I could encourage you to have a look at EBay. Or, write me off 
list, and I might be able to point you to given websites. True, for all 
this material, you can do a Yahoo! or Google search, entering phrases like
   Audiobook free download
Be aware though, that there is sites out there, offering illegal copies of 
such material, as well as with music files. Always read carefully the site 
terms, and make an informed decision, before downloading any material, 
whatso ever. Some sites might also be offering you material for free, then 
bombarding your computer with all kinds of spyware and other malicious 
software. The sites I have mentioned, should be safe, and that will leave 
you with the most pleasant experience. They ar legal, and unless your 
local authorities would happen to have special laws, should be safe in 
that manner as well. Hope for you to enjoy the books found there, and that 
this mail will have helped you to enjoy the features of MaPlEr even the 
more. You might start to realize, what a powerful tool, MaPlEr has grown 
into, through the years.

Regards Steve
Email:  srp at internode.on.net
MSN Messenger:  internetuser383 at hotmail.com
Skype:  steve1963
Twitter:  steve9782