Audio Book Clubs: Your Portable Library

An audio book club is a shopping club for book lovers. But how is it different from a normal book library? In simple terms, an audio book club provides books in audio format - they could be burned on a CD, could be on tape, or could be simple downloadable audio files.

The great advantage here is that you can read, or rather listen to, and enjoy any book even while you are engaged in any other work. Audio books make reading a pleasure, and place less demands on one of the most precious things in modern society: time.

The audio books are more portable than the paper versions: you can download the audio books directly into your computer and then burn it on a CD or store it in any portable device, such as your iPod. Yes, it is much like listening to music on your iPod! So how about turning on an audio book when you are waiting in a line? Or when you are driving, or cooking, or mowing the lawn? You could never do that with a traditional book, could you?

The audio book clubs provide a collection of audio books in CD, cassette, and/or secure digital download formats. The average file size of a downloadable audio book is about 100-150 megabytes. You can buy or rent an audio book from an audio book club.

Now, audio books could be spoken-word adaptations of a book or any other other literary work. These could be in the author's own voice or could be dramatic readings by one or more actors. Some could even feature sound effects.

There are both abridged and unabridged audio versions of literary works and other books in the audio book clubs. An unabridged audio book is a complete book while an abridged version is one that has been edited and only includes a portion of the complete work. You can usually find out from the audio book club’s web listing whether a particular book is available in abridged or unabridged format. The audio book club catalogue should give you a list of different formats available under each title.

If there is a title that is not available in the audio book club’s inventory, you can even request for a copy, much like in an offline library. When the book comes in, you will be informed automatically. An audio book club usually provides many works from an author, but not all.

The fast-paced modern life has made audio books highly popular. This has led to many authors and publishers putting their works into the audio book format. The audio book clubs offers many fantastic savings. They usually offer discounts of up to 20 per cent on new releases and up to 10 per cent on the other works in their collection.

A huge advantage of the audio book clubs is convenience: the online audio book clubs are open 24/7, enabling members to log in, search and download audio books at any time they choose, from any part of the world! You can select and listen to any type of books such as literature, science, sports, travel, technology, health, history, etc., at the audio book clubs. You can enroll in and cancel your membership in audio book club anytime you wish to.

At some audio book clubs you can get a monthly subscription and listen to as many audio books as you can! Also, anyone can log in and buy the audio books, just as you would walk into a book store and purchase a book. The first time you buy an audio book from an audio book club, you need to create an account. The audio books can be paid for using credit cards, just as in any other electronic transaction.