There are plenty of times in your life when you might want to listen to an audiobook. Unfortunately, they’re not always easy to get access to, especially if you happen to be a student.
Luckily, there’s plenty of ways to still get access to full audiobooks online completely for free. With so much variety available to you, there’s bound to be something that interests you if you just know where to look.
Here, we're taking a look at the eight best websites to download audiobooks for free.
1. Lit2Go
Lit2Go is a fantastic place to find audiobooks. You can find just about any book that has entered into the public domain here, and download it just as easily.
You can quickly search by author, genre, or the title of your book. Interestingly, you can also search by reading level, which Lit2Go grades using the Flesch-Kincaid grading system.
Once you choose a book, Lit2Go breaks it down into chapters for you. There’s a bunch of information here about the book itself, such as the word count, readability, genre, publishing date, and more.
If you find yourself lost in any part of the audio, there are also transcripts of most of the books. So, slightly ironically, you’ll be able to read along if you so wish.
2. ThoughtAudio
If you’re looking for something which is clean and easy to use, then ThoughtAudio is perfect for you. ThoughtAudio boasts an impressive selection of classic literature and philosophy titles, all available for free online.
You can search for whatever titles you want, or just scroll through the long list of available titles from the website’s landing page. ThoughtAudio also adds new titles pretty frequently, so you can sort by newer to older postings.
The website’s effortless to use, and gives you easy access to the audio files along with a brief description of the book and its author. Transcripts are also available for some books.
3. Storynory
If you’ve got little ones who need entertaining during long car trips, then Storynory is the website for you. Storynory is perhaps the largest collection of free children’s audiobooks that currently exists.
There’s a huge variety of books here, all aimed at children. There are various categories to choose from such as fairy tales, classic authors, myths, educational, and more. No matter what you’re looking for, Storynory has a little something for everyone.
You can also find transcripts of the stories if you’re looking for your little ones to also read along.
4. Open Culture
If you’re looking for something with some more variety in its content, then why not try out Open Culture? Open Culture is a website dedicated to cultural and educational media available for free.
Online courses, certificates, degrees, and of course, audiobooks are all available from this website. There are over 1,000 free audiobooks, all available for download.
They’re organized alphabetically and by author, so it should be pretty easy to find what you’re looking for. Many of the audiobooks also include links to free eBooks of the very same if you’re interested in that as well.
5. Overdrive
If you’re looking for some more modern audiobooks, then you’ll find Overdrive an easy way to get started. Overdrive functions much like a virtual library, and that works for eBooks and audiobooks, both.
All you have to do is provide a library card or student ID if you’re a student, and Overdrive will give you access to a wide range of eBooks and audiobooks to choose from.
The range here is truly impressive, and you can find books from a wide breadth of genres and collections with ease.
6. Digital Book
Digital Book is an online web service that collects a huge variety of audiobooks for you to enjoy, entirely for free. You can also look for eBooks and podcasts if you so wish.
There’s a good range of choices here, and an impressive number of genres as well. What really sets Digital Book apart, however, is the number of options it gives you to listen to books in other languages.
Digital Book as thousands of audiobooks in French and German, among a long list of other languages. Downloading is easy, and you can listen by chapter on their website if you so wish as well.
7. MINDWEBS
MINDWEBS is a bit of a departure from some of the other options on this list in that it is not truly a website that hosts audiobooks. Rather, MINDWEBS is an archive creation of episodes from the mind of Michael Hanson.
Each episode is about half an hour long and contains a short story from over 100 different authors. There’s a lot of these available here, and they’re quite enthralling and entirely free.
If you’re looking for something more thought-provoking to listen to on any trip about half an hour long, then MINDWEBS is an exceptional choice.
8. Scribl
Finally, Scribl makes it to the list. Scribl is a unique take on the eBook and audiobook market. Where most stores determined a book’s price just once, Scribl dynamically assigns prices based on how people purchase it.
As people purchase the book, the price goes up, and as more people continue to purchase it, the price continues to go up. If a book or audiobook can’t sustain its popularity at the higher price, then the price will dynamically come down.
This means that if you ever choose to purchase something on Scribl, you can be pretty confident that you’re getting your money’s worth. More than that, all books on Scribl start out completely free, so if you search through what it has to offer, you’re bound to find a gem or two waiting just for you.
Online Isn’t The End
There’s plenty of ways to get access to quality audiobooks online, and paying good money isn’t the only way to do so. Hopefully, you’ve found something on this list that you will find useful, but if you haven’t, don’t fret.
There’s plenty of other options available for you elsewhere, once you know where to look. Your phone has plenty of different options you can use, and there are always other alternatives you may have never thought of before.