Posted Thursday, May 19, 2005

When Audiobook Meets Podcast, it's the Podiobook

Not long after I posted yesterday's item about free audiobook sources, reader Ron Earl wrote to let me know of yet another source for free spoken-word content: Podiobooks.

What's a podiobook? I'll let the site's About page tell you: "podiobooks" is a term coined by Evo Terra of The Dragon Page and Slice of Scifi to describe serialized audio books which are made available in podcast format. Subscribers to the podcast feed for each book will receive a new chapter each and every week. Some listeners keep it on their computers, some transfer the book to CD, but most (hopefully) transfer the file on to their mp3 player so they can listen no matter where they are.

All the books you'll find on podiobooks.com are provided by the authors to you for free. Many authors do this to get exposure for their work, others do it in the hopes you'll buy their next work in development. Still others simply do it for the sheer joy of writing. And while it's not required, you have the option to donate money to the author of your choice.

Pretty slick. And what, you ask, is a podcast? That's covered in the book. Order from Amazon (still full price—when-oh-when will the discount be restored?) or from Barnes and Noble (30 percent off).