(Adamantios/Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 3.0)

Iam a huge fan of podcasts and audio books. I listen to them all the time: in the shower, in the car, and while I do assignments. Heck, I’m listening to an audio book now.

The only down side to audio books is that they are ridiculously expensive to purchase on disc, and even the MP3 files that you can purchase through book services like Kobo aren’t cheap. The best way I’ve found to keep my addiction light on my wallet is to subscribe to an audio book service.

By far the best subscription service I’ve come across so far is Audible. For only $15 CAD a month, you can get one credit, which equals any audio book in the Audible library. This is literally any book in the library, including new releases. To get an idea of how good of a deal this is, Brandon Sanderson’s newest novel, The Oathbringer, is listed at a retail price of $89.37. If you were to want to listen to that audio book, you could either spend the full retail price, or you could purchase a $15 credit. It’s kind of a no-brainer which is the better value.

I even find Audible useful in my academic life. If I know that I have a lot of things due and I don’t have time to read a full novel for class on top of assignments and my part-time job, I download a file from Audible of whatever book I need to read.

I have been a member of Audible since 2011, and have enjoyed many books in the past six years. Not all books are winners, of course — the secret to a truly great audio book is in the narrator.

If you are interested in trying Audible, you can sign up for a free, 30-day trial. This allows you one free credit to try out the service. If you don’t like it, you can cancel. The only catch is that Audible does require a valid credit card, but they also accept VISA debit cards.

Happy listening!