Open Culture » Audio Books

Give Librivox a Hand

Dan Colman — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 23:35:09 +0000

Perhaps you’re already familiar with Librivox. If not, you should be. Librivox provides over 3000 free audio books. The books (all in the public domain) are recorded by a passionate community of volunteers, and they’re all made freely available to you. (See their catalogue here.) Millions of people have downloaded their books. And, as you can imagine, the web hosting costs can run quite high. For the first time in 4+ years, Librivox is looking to raise some money. Please consider making a donation, however small or large, and support this very worthwhile project. You can find more information and donate here.

Give Librivox a Hand is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

Jonathan Safran Foer on Eating

Dan Colman — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:22:51 +0000

Note: You should be able to download Safran Foer’s new book for free (in audio format) through Audible.com’s no strings attached offer. Details here.

Jonathan Safran Foer on Eating is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

Disney Kindle Commando Sunday is Here!

Seth Harwood — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 16:54:01 +0000

Today’s free story: When They Were Calling You in for Dinner (listen here) or read it in the Charles River Review [To download the story and listen on your MP3 player, just right-click and "save file as..."]

Dear OC readers,

About a week ago, I posted here about my Publishing Experiment Take 1. I spoke of the need for authors (Yes, Authors!) to make experiments in new media and publishing. Well, now’s the time to put my fiction where my mouth is. Today I’m launching my collection of short stories, A Long Way from Disney, on Amazon’s Kindle platform at the price of $.99.

Direct link to buy A Long Way from Disney on Amazon.

Please visit SethHarwood.com/kindle for more info. You can buy the book if you have 1) A Kindle 2) an iPhone/iPod Touch or 3) Any PC computer!

Easy! See you soon with more free stories and results from this experiment.

PS: If you’d like to hear more free stories like this, you can check out new posts today at CrimeWAV.com and SethHarwood.com. You can also get the stories directly from iTunes.

Seth Harwood podcasts his ideas on the publishing industry and his fiction for free at sethharwood.com. He will be teaching an online course (The Essential Art: Making Movies in Your Reader’s Mind) with Stanford Continuing Studies starting in January. His first novel, JACK WAKES UP, is in stores now.

Disney Kindle Commando Sunday is Here! is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

Free Download of A Confederacy of Dunces

Dan Colman — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 21:57:23 +0000

A quick note: Audible is currently running a nice deal. Click here to get a free download of the 1981 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, A Confederacy of Dunces. (Move quickly, it’s probably available for just a short time.) You can also download pretty much any audiobook you want from Audible, with no strings attached. I’ve included more info on that standing offer here.

Free Download of A Confederacy of Dunces is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

Uranium Wars: A Free Audio Chapter

Dan Colman — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 06:08:17 +0000

Just a quick fyi: Audible.com is giving away a free chapter (in audio) from a new book, Uranium Wars: The Scientific Rivalry that Created the Nuclear Age (preview it on Amazon here). Written by Amir Aczel, a skilled popular science writer, the book takes a close look at the scientists who discovered the destructive potential of uranium and launched the beginning of the nuclear age. Since the book has been getting good reviews, I thought that I’d flag this free giveaway. Also, as mentioned here before, Audible runs a regular promotion that will let you download a free audiobook of your choice (for example, Uranium Wars) if you start a 14 day free trial. Once the trial is over, you can continue your Audible subscription, or cancel it, and still keep the free book. The choice is yours. You can initiate that process here.

Uranium Wars: A Free Audio Chapter is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

Good “Reads” On Audible (with Freebie Possibilities)

Dan Colman — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 18:52:55 +0000

A quick note: Audible has recently launched a series called the Audible Modern Vanguard (more details here) that brings groundbreaking works and authors into unabridged audio for the first time. Here, you’ll find works by Paul Auster (one of my faves), Saul Bellow, John Cheever, John Irving, Kurt Vonnegut, and William Kennedy.

There are some good “reads” here, and, unless I’m mistaken, there’s a way that you can download one for free. I’ve created a page where you can get information on Audible’s (no strings attached) 14 day trial here, which gives you a completely free download of any audio book you choose.

Good “Reads” On Audible (with Freebie Possibilities) is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

The Future of Content Delivery

Seth Harwood — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 06:16:19 +0000

This podcast (get it here) presents the thoughts of Scott Sigler–media maven, NY Times Bestselling Author of INFECTED and CONTAGIOUS (both available free as podcasts), podiobook dynamo, and social networking mastermind–on none other than ”how will people read books in the near future?”

In this repodcast of his keynote speech at this year’s Balticon conference, Scott talks about how he built a HUGE online fan base for his fiction, landed a major publishing deal with Crown Books, reached NY Times bestseller status, and why he insists that giving his fiction away for free is the best marketing around.

He presents his thoughts on Big Publishing, small publishing, smart-phones vs. the Kindle, and perhaps most importantly, lays out the methods by which he pre-sold 1,500 copies of his new, self-published novel THE ROOKIE this April via his own website, scottsigler.com. That’s right: Forget print-on-demand and its higher cost-per-book. Scott breaks down how he pre-sold enough books to pay for an entire print run before THE ROOKIE ever went to press! It’s a model so far ahead of everyone else that we’ve got to take notes!

If you’re a writer or aspiring author, you need to listen to this. And don’t let the intro scare you off.

To download this file and listen to it on your own time, on your iPod or similar device, simple right click this link: DOWNLOAD and choose “Save Link as…” on a Mac, or “Save File” on a PC.

Or listen to it right here:

Seth Harwood, the author of JACK WAKES UP, will be teaching an online course (The Gripping Read) with Stanford Continuing Studies. And he’ll also be teaching an Author Bootcamp with Scott Sigler on Stanford’s campus on November 7 and 14. Each course only has a few slots still open.

The Future of Content Delivery is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

Chris Anderson @ Google

Dan Colman — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 05:40:29 +0000

Chris Anderson, the author of Free: The Future of a Radical Price (download a free audio file of the book here) is making the rounds, promoting his new book. Of course, it was only natural that Anderson (also the author of The Long Tail and editor-in-chief of Wired) should pay a visit to Google, a company that generates billions of dollars by serving free content and services. With the talk above, you get an introduction to Anderson’s take on “free” and some good Q&A. The presentation runs about 53 minutes in total.

Chris Anderson @ Google is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

Never Mind Amazon, Get Your Free Orwell Here

Dan Colman — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 06:59:35 +0000

The whole mini-controversy surrounding Amazon’s deletion of George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm from Kindle accounts reminded me of something. Over at the Internet Archive, you can find 1984 available as a free audio book. And, nicely, the recording is professionally done. You can download the full zip file here. Or alternatively you can get the individual mp3 files, or stream them, from this page. On a more permanent basis, you can find Orwell’s 1949 work housed in our Free Audio Book Collection along with lots of other free texts.

Never Mind Amazon, Get Your Free Orwell Here is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

Update: How to Get “Free” Anywhere

Dan Colman — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 06:31:42 +0000

Ok, sorry to belabor this. Earlier today, I mentioned that you could download the audiobook of Chris Anderson’s Free: The Future of a Radical Price at Audible for no cost. It turns out that the Audible offer isn’t available to a worldwide audience. It may just be available to US residents. The good news is that I pinged Chris Anderson on Twitter, and asked if there’s a universal version out there. And he kindly pointed me in the right direction. Here’s the deal: you can get a universally free version over on Wired’s website. The page is here, and the zip file is here. Hope that helps.

Note: I’ve added Anderson’s zip file to our collection of Free Audio Books. There, I’ve also recently added a couple of related works: Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture and Cory Doctorow’s Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright and the Future of the Future . You can find them housed under Non-Fiction.

Update: How to Get “Free” Anywhere is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com