While many people associate iPhone and iPod with apps, music, and movies, these devices are equally handy for listening to audiobooks. Below are our picks for the best places to get free audiobooks for your iPhone.
There are lots of other free audiobook sites you can look through if you don’t find something interesting on these websites.
Archive.org
What We Like
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No cost, ever.
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Lots of classics.
What We Don’t Like
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Not much contemporary, quality content.
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Can be difficult to navigate.
Archive.org is a gigantic collection of all types of free media. Beyond its collection of over 13 million audio files are eBooks, software, movies, images, old web pages, and more.
All content on Archive.org is totally free, but it also tends to be either public domain or content released by self-published authors. As a result, don’t expect to find the biggest names or the latest hits, but you will find a nearly inexhaustible supply of great listening.
Some audiobooks exist in a format that the phone doesn’t recognize as an audiobook. You can convert these audiobooks to the M4B format with a file converter tool.
All You Can Books is a subscription service that offers audiobooks for iPhone for a monthly fee, but with a twist: it offers a 30-day free subscription period, after which (unless you cancel) you’ll pay $24.99 per month. The trial is identical to the paid edition, so during this free period, you can download unlimited audiobooks onto your iPhone for free.
It’s hard to know what kind of selection the site has because you can’t browse its library of over 200,000 titles without subscribing, but since the first month is free, the risk seems low. You can cancel your subscription before the first 30 days are up. Or, let the payment process and continue getting books, just not for free.
What We Like
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Public domain content.
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Downloadable MP3s.
Loyal Books (previously called Books Should Be Free) is another site that offers public domain audiobooks (this includes books by authors who passed away, in most cases, at least 75 years ago). Most of its titles are drawn from Project Gutenberg and LibriVox.
The audiobooks here are completely free and can be downloaded either as a podcast or as an MP3. The iPhone-compatible audiobook titles are offered in multiple languages, including English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and more.
To download an audiobook to iPhone, choose the iPod/iPhone M4b Audiobook link.
What We Like
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Huge selection.
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Many current releases.
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Free trial.
Perhaps the best-known provider of downloadable audiobooks, Audible has been going strong since 1997. It’s primarily a subscription service — it costs $14.95/month after a 30-day free trial — and offers free audiobooks as part of its promotions to attract new subscribers.
Audible sponsors many popular podcasts and other top shows. It provides free audiobooks for iPhone through those ads. Be alert when listening to those podcasts to get free audiobook offers.
Audible has a free mobile app that provides access to your Audible library while on the go.
image credit: eStories
What We Don’t Like
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Several pricing plans, some are expensive.
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Basic plan includes just one audiobook each month.
A spin-off from the subscription-based music store eMusic, eStories (formerly called eMusic Audiobooks) is the newer version of that site’s audiobook download business. The audiobook selection is robust and includes the latest big-name titles and authors as well as less-well-known works.
Literature fans can choose from plans that offer one, two, or five audiobook downloads per month. Plans also offer a rollover for unused downloads and support for playback on multiple devices. Subscriptions run from $11.99 to $49.99 per month, with discounts applied for full-year purchases.
image credit: Librivox
What We Like
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Great selection of classics.
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Free and volunteer-curated.
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MP3 downloads without DRM restraints.
This volunteer-powered site offers public domain books in audio format for iPhone, read by people from all over the world (and, as a result, offers books in many languages). These iPhone audiobooks are available as 64 kbps or 128 kbps MP3s.
Since these are public domain-only books, you won’t find the latest titles here. However, if you’re looking for a wide selection of classic titles and if you want to listen in a variety of languages, LibriVox is a good bet.
Project Gutenberg is the most prominent provider of free, public domain eBooks on the web. It also offers audiobook versions of some titles. You won’t find the latest books by the biggest authors here, but if you’re after the classics or quirky obscurities, it’s a great resource for truly free audiobooks for iPhone.
Download the books in MP3, M4B audiobook, Speex, or Ogg Vorbis formats.
Scribl (formerly called Podiobooks) offers audiobooks, podcasts, and eBooks using what it calls a crowd-pricing system. This means that works that are highly rated by their users cost more, while lower-rated titles cost less, with many offered for free. Another nice feature of the service is that audiobooks come with an eBook version of the title for free.
For writers, Scribl is also a self-publishing platform. That means you’re likely to find more up-and-coming indie authors here than big names. Still, there are tons of titles across many genres, so you’re likely to find something of interest.
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