This week’s Audiobooks! Newsletter is sponsored by Audiobooks.com.
Get your book fix on the go with Audiobooks.com! Whether you’re in the car, at the gym or on the couch, Audiobooks.com makes it easy to listen to over 100,000 titles on their user-friendly apps for iOS and Android. Stream books live or download for offline listening, and enjoy cool features like sped-up narration and custom bookmarking. You can browse by genre or curated lists, check out promotions and giveaways, and switch seamlessly between devices with cloud-syncing technology. And best of all, your first book is free! Try Audiobooks.com today.
Hey-o, listeners! Our first order of business today is for you to go download Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man for free. It’s OK, I’ll wait right here.
Invisible Man is a perennial Book Riot favorite (because it’s amaaaaaazing!), and it’s free from Audible for the rest of 2016! If you’re new to the awesomeness of Ellison, Invisible Man is a 1952 classic about an unnamed narrator whose black skin makes him invisible in a segregated society. It’s universally beloved as one of the greatest American novels of all time, and the audio is performed by Joe Morton (a.k.a. Olivia Pope’s dad on Scandal!). And just to throw in a cool li’l factoid, the guy who founded Audible was Ralph Ellison’s student at NYU. He says Ellison’s love of oral tradition and spoken word are what inspired him to create Audible in the first place (!). Now go download Invisible Man for real if you haven’t yet!
Tips for Audiobook Newbies
Please welcome Maddie to the audiobook clubhouse, y’all. Book Riot contributor Maddie Rodriguez decided 2016 would be her year to break out and experiment with audiobooks. And, lucky us, she has just reported back with some helpful observations! Whether you’re just starting out with audiobooks, you’re still considering taking the plunge, or you’re already a pro, you’ll want to take a peek at Maddie’s beginner listening tips and favorite audiobook finds.
Wait, You Mean I Get Free Audiobooks With Amazon Prime??
Book Riot Contributor Kristen McQuinn kind of blew my mind when she casually dropped that she was enjoying Celeste Ng’s audiobook Everything I Never Told You for free through Amazon Prime. Umm… is this the best kept secret of an Amazon Prime membership, or what?!
So, turns out this is a fairly new perk that Amazon announced about six weeks ago. If you’ve got an Amazon Prime membership, you now get access to a rotating selection of 50 audiobooks from Audible’s catalog, including a mix of best-sellers, family favorites, and celebrity-narrated classics. With rad books like Everything I Never Told You on that list, I am so in!
Audiobooks Are Turning More Readers into Listeners
2016 has been a shaky year for book publishers, friends. Publisher earnings fell 2.7% at the beginning of this year compared to last year. But audiobooks are the shining exception — digital audiobook earnings soared 35.3%, making them the star of the publishing industry!
The rise of audiobooks at the same time ebooks and hardcovers are declining might mean that more people are listening to books instead of reading them, as The New York Times recently speculated. I think that’s pretty spot on for me. What do you think — are you listening more and reading less in 2016?