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There are many places you can get audiobooks, and many ways to get them. Here you can review online stores, book clubs, and rental services. There are also some free downloads available, and your local library will have some auidobooks.
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USA | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Spain
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Buy/Tape, CD
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About 25,000 Cassete and CD audiobooks, 13,500 booksellers.
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Many titles with 'No minimum purchase' free shipping. International shipping anywhere in the world.
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PayPal, Visa, American Express, Mastercard, Diners Club, Cheque, Money Order, Bank Draft.
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AbeBooks is a network service that includes some 13,500 sellers.
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40%-60% off list price for new books
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New and Used items available.
90% off and more on used items
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30-day money-back-gurantee
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Free shipping with no minimum purchase available
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AbeBooks has some 13,500 sellers. The service is very well managed, there is a money-back-guarantee,
resonable, and often free shipping. Many rare titles are available, there is a 'want' option,
in case you can't find what you want.
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USA | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | Japan | France | China
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Buy/Tape, CD
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Over 150,000 Cassete and CD audio books; paper books, music, videos, more.
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Portable CD player, car tape or CD player, or learn how to
convert
your audio CDs to
digital audio.
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Credit Card, USA checking account, Purchase Order.
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30%-60% off list price
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New and Used items available.
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Amazon
A-Z guarantee
covers all purchases
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Free shipping on orders over $25
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Amazon is a great place to shop for books, movies, music. And if you live in the USA, you
can shop in
35 product categories,
including electronics, food, shoes, etc.
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USA | France | Germany | United Kingdom
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Buy/Download
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.aa format
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Over 30,000 titles
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Compatible with 192 audio players, including iPod. Files are very small
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Credit Card, Money Order, Bank Draft
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Requires Audible file manager, or iTunes. Plays with
WMP, or
Real Player.
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14.95/mo: 1 Book/month + 30% off all
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149.50/Year: 12 Books at once + 30% off all
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22.95/mo: 2 Books/month + 30% off all
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229.50/Year: 24 Books at once + 30% off all
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9.95/Year: 0 Book credits. 30% off all. Keep your existing credits alive.
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Audible has been dedicated to audio books online since 1995. Their rapidly growing collection is spoken word only: best selling books,
educational material, self help, documentary.
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Buy or Free Download
Buy MP3 CD or DVD
Buy preloaded MP3 player or hard drive
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MP3 or m4a format. (m4a must be ordered special)
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About 800 titles
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Compatible with any portable audio player. iPod compatible m4a files have to be purchased on a DVD, or converted in iTunes.
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Will play with any software. Large number of files. Audiobooksforfree sugest a Download Manager to help this.
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Download/Per Title
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8 Kb/sec -- FREE
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16 Kb/sec -- $3 USD
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24 Kb/sec -- $5 USD
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32 Kb/sec -- $6 USD
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48 Kb/sec -- $7 USD
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One title on MP3 CD -- $15 USD
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One title on Audio CD -- Depends on length of title, $7 per CD
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All books
9 MP3 or 10 m4a DVDs -- $100 USD
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All books
Preloaded onto a 30 GB Portable Player -- $600 USD
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All books
Preloaded onto a computer hard drive -- ??? Depends on size of drive
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AudioBooksForFree offers Public Domain books in audiobook form. You can download lower quality files for free, or they will sell you higher quality downloads, or MP3 CDs, or DVDs, or a pre-loaded MP3 player or hard drive.
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Buy/CD, MP3 CD
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About 37,000 audiobooks on CD or MP3 CD
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Portable CD player, car CD player, or learn how to
convert
your audio CDs to
digital audio.
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Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, US Check, Money Order
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Some international shipping options available.
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Regular prices on the site: 37% off list
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Bargains Section: up to 75%+ off list
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Free shipping on orders over $25
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Great book store. Free shipping on US orders over $25. No return/exchange to the regular retail stores.
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Rent
CD, MP3/CD, paperback
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Over 13,000 CD and MP3/CD audio books; 79,000 books.
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Portable CD player, MP3 CD player. MP3 CDs are regular 64Kb/s non DRM MP3.
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Credit Card, USA checking account.
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BooksFree rents both paperback books and audiobooks. You have to join two separate services
for paper and audio though.
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CD or MP3/CD
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1 at-a-time
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$19.99/mo;
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2 at-a-time
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$24.99/mo;
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3 at-a-time
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$33.99/mo;
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4 at-a-time
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$39.99/mo
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MP3/CD only
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1 at-a-time
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$9.99/mo;
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2 at-a-time
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$15.99/mo;
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3 at-a-time
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$23.99/mo;
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4 at-a-time
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$31.99/mo
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Purchase prices are about 25% off list.
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BooksFree is a great book club. There are many 'all-you-can-eat' options available at different
price points. MP3 CDs are great: whole book comes on one disk. Purchase prices are very competitive.
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Buy/CD, Tape
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Many books on Tape, CD; DVDs, Electronics, Software, etc
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Portable CD player, car tape or CD player, or learn how to
convert
your audio CDs to
digital audio.
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Credit Card, Personal Check, PayPal, Money Order
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30%-70% off MSRP
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New, used, reconditioned.
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Save 30% more with Buy.com Visa
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Free shipping on books over $25
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Buy.com wants to be the best place to shop online. With their 10% price guarantee, lots of
payment options, available free shipping in US, and more, they might be.
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Buy/CD, Tape
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80,000-100,000 Books on Tape or CD, over 3 million paper books, DVD movies, and music CDs
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Portable CD player, car tape or CD player, or learn how to
convert
your audio CDs to
digital audio.
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MasterCard, Visa, American Express
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Regular prices on the site: 30% off list
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Books Outlet, Used Books: up to 80%+ off list
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Join the ireward program for more savings
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For shopping in Canada, it's the best. All prices are in Canadian dollars.
There is free Canadian shipping on orders over $39, returns and exchanges in stores across
the country.
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United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Greece,
Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Canada, Denmark, Norway,
Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, and Australia
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Buy/Download
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.aac (.m4p) format with
Fair Play DRM
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Over 3.5 million songs, more than 30,000 audio books (Audible collection, and more), 65,000 free Podcasts
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Compatible with iPod and some Motorola phones.
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Credit Card, PayPal, bank account, iTunes gift certificate
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About 25% off list CD price for audio books
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Songs are mostly $0.99
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Thousands of free podcasts
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99c a song, $9.99 a movie, $4.99 iPod games.
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iTunes store is very popular. You can get all your entertainment from one spot, and for a good price, with audiobooks, movies, music,
and so much more available. The PayPal option is very nice, and the free podcasts are a gem.
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Rent
CD, Tape
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Download Club
WMA with PlaysForSure DRM
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About 37,000 audiobooks on CD or MP3 CD
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Janus PlaysForSure compatible audio player, or CD player for CDs. Download club files will
only play during the rental period. No CD burning.
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Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover
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Shipping only to US. Download content is DRM protected time restricted rental.
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1 CD/Tape Rentals at a time
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$14.95/mo
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2 CD/Tape Rentals at a time
3 Downloads a Month
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$24.95/mo
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5 CD/Tape Rentals at a time
6 Downloads a Month
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$39.95
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6 Downloads a Month
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$24.95/mo
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The selection is nice. Prices for the different packages are competitive. The DRM restrictions on the download files are severe.
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Free Download
Public Domain
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MP3, Ogg, m4a, spx, wav
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About 700 audio titles,
Over 20,000 e-books and audiobooks
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Books read by volunteers, computer read books, e-books, a few videos.
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Michael Hart, the inventor of e-books started project Gutenberg in 1971. In 1990
Gutenberg added audiobooks to their site. It's all Public Domain texts. You will find classics of all kinds, from Aesop to Tolstoy, and from Beowulf to Poe.
There are currently over 200 human narrated titles, the rest are computer generated. The human narration quality is good. Some files are of lower quality, for decreased size, but more than sufficient for voice reproduction.
Project Gutenberg started free books on the net, and is still instrumental in production
and distribution of free e-, and audio books.
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Free Download
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MP3, ogg Vorbis formats
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About 400 audio titles so far
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Books read by volunteers, service principals; audio plays.
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LibriVox was created in 2005 by Hugh McGuire. Its mission is to make all public domain works of literature available as audiobooks. LibriVox has a volunteer project where anybody can read an audiobook. Some foreign language books are available.
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Free Download
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MP3, FLAC
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About 15 titles so far
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Books read by volunteers, paid actors/preformers.
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Public Domain and Creative CommonsLiteral Systems prides themselves on the quality of their narration. The quality is good, the collection is small, seems to be an interesting project.
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Free Download, library card from praticipating library required.
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WMA
with
PlaysForSure10 DRM
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About 1,600 audio titles,
About 6,000 e-books
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Current titles, proffessionaly recorded by Recorded Books, Blackstone Audio, Books on Tape and other leading publishers.
Available in over 100 countries.
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NetLibrary has offered audiobooks since 2004. In order for you to access their collection, your local library has to be a member. If it is, you can log in, usually through your library's site, with your library card number, and 'check out' or download up to ten titles at a time.
All of NetLibrary's audiobooks are professionally recorded copyrighted books, provided by major publishers. All are in the form of WMA files that are encrypted with a PlaysForSure DRM protection scheme. This Digital Rights Management restricts how you can play and transfer the files. NetLibrary files can only be played for the length of the lending period, only on one computer, and only on 2 compatible portable players. After lending period, the file will stop working, but the license can be renewed by logging into your account again.
All audiobooks come as one very large file per title. It can take a while to download, and you better make sure your player bookmarks or keeps the place on shut off.
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Buy:CD, Tape, Download, MP3 CD
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Rent:
CD, MP3/CD
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Download Club:
PlaysForSure WMA
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More than 22,000 audiobook titles
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Tape, CD, PlaysForSure digital audio.
Not compatible with iPod.
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Purchase option is not available in Canada. Not all rental or download options available
in UK or Canada. Credit card payment only.
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1 Rental at-a-time
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US $143.40/yr, $14.95/mo;
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2 Rentals at-a-time
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US $251.40/yr, $24.95/mo;
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3 Rentals at-a-time
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US $359.40/yr, $32.95/mo;
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4 Rentals at-a-time
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US $443.40/yr, $39.95/mo
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1 Downld /mo
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US $119.40/yr, $11.95/mo;
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2 Downlds /mo
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US $227.40/yr, $19.95/mo;
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3 Downlds /mo
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US 323.40/yr, $27.95/mo;
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Purchase price is about equal to list.
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SimplyAudiobooks has a small selection of free downloadable audio books . While they are from Public Domain texts they are professionally produced and narrated. With the 'book of the month' feature we can only expect the collection to grow.
Both 'All you can eat' options are very nice. Shipping is free for the rentals. Downloads are
in the form of WMA files encoded with Janus PlaysForSure DRM. The DRM scheme lets you use downloaded files on one computer, transfer to an MP3 player
3 times, burn 3 CDs.
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Free Download
Creative Commons
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m4a
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About 150 finished audiobooks.
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Books read by autors.
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Podibooks is a newcomer to the scene, but already have a sizable collection. All titles are under Creative Commons lisence, so have been released by their authors. Donations to the authors are strongly encouraged on the site.
The narration quality is good. The site format is a little strange, but something you can get used to.
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Buy/Tape, CD
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Limited number of Cassete and CD audio books; audiobook download, paper books, music, videos, more.
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Portable CD player, car tape or CD player, or learn how to
convert
your audio CDs to
digital audio.
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Shipping to US only. Security of shopping at WalMart. Returns and exchange in your local WalMart.
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Always low WalMart prices
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Shop for anything in WalMart and more from home.
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Free site to store shipping
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WalMart is already great. Now enjoy everything you get at the store, and some extras from
the comfort of home. You can return items purchased online to your local WalMart, and
get free site to store shipping.
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