Free Audiobooks: 15 Best Places to Find Audiobooks
Free audiobooks is a great way to bring more books into your life. These sites are the best places to download or listen to free audiobooks.
Audiobooks can be a great way to bring more books into your life. But audiobooks are generally more expensive than print books or ebooks. The good news is that there’re still many websites where you can find free and legal audiobooks. These websites offer thousands of free audiobooks online.
These audiobooks are completely free for you to download and listen to whenever you want. You’ll be able to download complete books, or you can listen to these audiobooks online.
These websites either have permission from the author or they are public domain. If you haven’t got time to sit down with a book, check out one of these sites. Here are the best websites that you can use to listen to and download free audiobooks legally.
Quick Links
- LibriVox
- OverDrive
- Storynory
- Project Gutenberg
- 5. Spotify’s Audiobooks
- digitalbook.io
- Scribl
- Learn Out Loud
- Lit2Go
- Loyal Books
- Mind Webs
- AudioFile SYNC
- Free Classic Audio Books
- Audible
- ThoughtAudio
- Some Other Places to Find Free Audiobooks Online
15 Best Places to Find Free Audiobooks Online
Here, we’ve discussed on 15 best places to find free audiobooks online. Find your audiobooks that interests you by browsing through this list of the websites for free audiobooks.
1. LibriVox
LibriVox records public domain books and provides them as free audiobooks. This site has a huge selection of free audiobooks, with a diverse set of titles. Librivox is a non-profit initiative, and all the audiobooks in LibriVox are recordings of volunteers. If you do want to download the whole audiobook, you can do so. You can listen to the chapters individually without having to download.
2. OverDrive
OverDrive provides access to their over two million books and videos, and partner with more than 30,000 libraries. You’ll find fiction and non-fiction books including best-sellers, through OverDrive, and they’re all free. Besides audiobooks, OverDrive also provides free eBooks, music, and movies. Overdrive also has an app called Libby to help their users a smoother reading experience for their users.
3. Storynory
Storynory offers a huge collection of free audiobooks for kids. The selection includes original stories, fairy tales, classics, educational books, and more. Storynory should be your first stop for free audiobooks for kids. Their collection of audiobooks is a great way to entertain kids, but they’re really for anybody who wants to hear folks, fables, or stories for all ages. The books are read by an enthusiastic and kid-friendly voice, the little readers will be happy with in this wonderful collection.
4. Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is the oldest digital library and a classic site for free ebooks that are in the public domain. This site offers a wider collection of books, and even audiobooks in 50+ languages. Project Gutenberg has audiobooks that are human-read and some that are computer-read. Similar to LibriVox, Project Gutenberg runs by volunteers. On Project Gutenberg, finding a book is easy by title, author, subject, and languages.
5. Spotify’s Audiobooks
Although Spotify is not an audiobook website and it’s especially music streaming service, but they have a wide range of collections of audiobooks on their service. You’ll need a Spotify account to listen to their content. Spotify is free to listen, but non-paying customers are restricted to download. Spotify has a large number of high quality audiobooks, they also houses a wide range of short story podcasts. Premium subscribers can download audiobooks for offline playback.
6. digitalbook.io
Digitalbook.io is a digital directory that makes it easy to find public domain audiobooks. This site is powered by Amazon, offering a wide range of titles and genres. Users can look through the list of genres or authors, or can browse by latest or top rated audiobooks by Digitalbook. Digitalbook.io has a huge numbers of items, some are regular ebooks and others are audiobooks. Users can download just a specific chapter or whole audiobook, or can listen to the audiobooks online.
7. Scribl
Scribl is an online marketplace, an online seller of ebooks and audiobooks. Most of the audiobooks come at a cost on Scribl, but over half of their listed audiobooks are available to download for free. You may find some unique audiobooks that aren’t free anywhere else. So you can buy quite a few different audiobooks on the site. Besides eBooks and podcasts, Scribl has also mobile apps to listen to from smartphones.
8. Learn Out Loud
Learn Out Loud’s mission is to offer free multimedia resources for educational purposes. Their website features over 50,000 free multimedia resources to expand your knowledge. Learn Out Loud has a large numbers of best audio books, podcasts, lectures, courses, speeches, documentaries, interviews, and so much more. Using Learn Out Loud’s content is not free, and it is expensive compared to other audio book providing sites.
9. Free Audiobooks on Lit2Go
Lit2Go offers audiobooks, plays, short stories, and poems, offered by the Florida Center for Instructional Technology at USF. Lit2Go is a free collection of public domain books, and is a fantastic place to find audiobooks. As indicated by its name, Lit2Go focuses on the classics and it includes some wonderful classic children’s books like The Story of Doctor Dolittle, The Secret Garden, Peter Pan, Little Women, and more. Lit2Go’s collection is available in mp3 format, and it invites users to support literacy by donating.
10. Loyal Books
Loyal Books offers audiobooks by the language, the Loyal Books top 100, and by a multitude of genres, from science fiction and historical fiction to adventure and romance. The site shares audiobooks that are from public domain. On Loyal Books, you’ll find Sir Author Conan Doyle’s The Return of Sherlock Holmes and John Milton’s Paradise Lost, among others. It’s easy to use Loyal Books to download audiobooks, or you can listen to these books on the website.
11. Mind Webs
Mind Webs used to be a dramatized radio program that has over 150 of the most classic science fiction short stories. You’ll find free science fiction stories from Kurt Vonnegut, H.G. Wells, and Ursula K. Le Guin, among others. Mind Webs radio program is hosted by Michael Hanson. Mind Webs has high-quality half-hour episodes, and each episode contains a short story from over 100 different authors. If you’re looking for something more thought-provoking to listen to, Mind Webs can be an exceptional choice.
12. AudioFile SYNC
Audiobook SYNC is a free summer reading program for teens, but anyone can take part in it and get audiobooks. The program sponsored by AudioFile Magazine and delivered by OverDrive. SYNC provides two free audiobooks every week over the summer for kids 13 and older, but the site also provides a way for adults to download free audiobooks. You can sign up for email alerts to get notified when SYNC releases new titles.
13. Free Classic Audio Books
As its name implies, Free Classic Audiobooks specializes in classic and fiction audiobooks. Some examples include The Wind in the Willows, Romeo and Juliet, Autobiography of Mark Twain, and The Mysterious Affair at Styles. It allows you to download MP3 files of classic works that are in public domain. On Free Classic Audiobooks, you can view their content by most popular, author’s name, or by recently added.
14. Audible
Audible is another section of Amazon and it has a great selection of audiobooks. But Audible is not free, and you need to pay subscription fee at $15 per month. Audible is one of the best sites to find and purchase audiobooks on the web. On Audible, you can send a free book to anyone you want. Though it’s ordinarily a paid service, Audible has a 30-day free trial and you can download two audiobooks for free during that time.
15. ThoughtAudio
ThoughtAudio has an impressive selection of classic literature and philosophy books, all available for download as free audiobooks. ThoughtAudio runs by donations and volunteer voices contribute to their audiobooks. To get the site’s materials, you have to either listen to them or download the PDF transcripts for these audiobooks. ThoughtAudio gives you easy access to their audio files, and you can search easily for whatever titles you want on the site.
Some Other Places to Find Free Audiobooks Online
- Open Culture — A collection of 1,000 free audiobooks offered other places online.
- Light Up Your Brain — Provides free audiobooks that are just for kids.
- World Book Day — Provide a selection of free listens for children for six months.
- Hoopla — A digital media service offered by local public library.
- Audiobooks.com — High-quality audiobooks narrated by experienced voice actors.
- BBC Sounds — A wide variety of radio shows, podcasts, and audiobooks.
- Kobo’s Audiobooks — A place of high-quality complimentary audiobooks.
- Internet Archive — A nonprofit digital library that offers millions of free audio books.
- All You Can Books — Get audiobooks as you can within 30-day free trial.
FAQ about free audiobooks
Are there any audiobooks available that are really free of charge?
Yes, there are several platforms and websites that offer free audiobooks online. These platforms may have a combination of public domain works, as well as books that are made available by authors, publishers, or organizations for free distribution.
Are all public domain audio books available for free?
Yes, all audiobooks that fall within the public domain are generally available for free. Public domain works are not protected by copyright and can be freely used, shared, and distributed.
How do I get free audiobooks?
Many classic books and older works have entered the public domain, meaning they are no longer under copyright. Platforms like Librivox and Project Gutenberg offer free audiobooks from the public domain. Remember to respect copyright laws and ensure that the audiobooks you access are legally available for free.
How can I download free audiobooks on my phone?
Select an audiobook platform or service that offers downloadable audiobooks. Popular options include Audible, Librivox, OverDrive, Google Play Books, and Apple Books. Make sure to install the corresponding app on your phone.
Physical books or audiobooks, which is better?
Whether physical books or audiobooks are better depends on personal preferences and circumstances. Ultimately, the choice between physical books and audiobooks is subjective. Many readers enjoy both formats and choose based on their mood, situation, or personal preference at the time.
We hope these resources lead you to some amazing reads — do check out our lists of free ebooks and best easy English novels if you’re looking for more freebies, and happy reading!</>