“Have you listened to any good audiobooks lately?” It may sound weird, but that’s what some of my friends have been asking me lately.
Audiobooks are more popular than ever. According to a report by the Audio Publishers Association (APA), 38% of adults have listened to an audiobook in the last year (up from 35% in 2023), with more avid listeners consuming an average of 6.8 titles in a year (up from 6.3 in 2023).
But if you’ve never listened to an audiobook before, it can be a bit confusing to know where to start, or where to get the best titles. I spoke with the team at NBC Select to hone in on our favorite audiobook apps and got some advice on how to find your next page-turner audio obsession.
SKIP AHEAD The best audiobooks apps in 2024 | How to shop for audiobooks | Why trust NBC Select?
How to listen to audiobooks
The best way to listen to an audiobook is on your phone, in our experience. You can download and listen to hundreds of titles anytime you want through an audiobook app. Most come with a free trial, so you can try them out before buying a book or starting a subscription.
If you want to separate your reading time from your phone time, you can also listen to audiobooks on e-readers like the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite or Kobo Clara Colour. Unlike your phone, most e-readers are restricted to the brand’s respective audio library.
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The best audiobooks apps in 2024
Most audiobook apps offer a similar experience where you can buy, download and listen to new and classic titles from a massive catalog. The app that’s best for you may be the one you are already using or an app you are already familiar with, but didn’t know had audiobooks. Below are some of our favorites.
Staff pick: Audible
- Huge library of titles
- Premium Plus subscriber credit
- Pricey for non-subscribers
NBC Select associate updates editor Zoe Malin used Audible for much of her college career. “I always listened to assigned books while walking around campus or commuting — it was a great way for me to multitask,” she says. Audible is one of the more established audiobook apps and has a huge catalog of titles to choose from.
You can buy audiobooks individually or pay for a subscription and access the Audible Plus catalog of titles as part of your membership. Audible Premium Plus subscribers get one audiobook credit every month, which can be used to purchase any title. Audible requires an Amazon account to use (Audible is owned by Amazon).
Membership: Optional, starts at $7.95 per month
Best public library app: Libby
- Free with your library card
- Easy to use app
- Nothing to note at this time
I am a huge fan of my public library. The Libby app makes it easy to rent audiobooks (and ebooks) from its catalog. I’ve used it for over four years to listen to audiobooks while traveling locally and abroad. It’s free with your library card, and it’s one of the easiest book/audiobook apps I’ve used.
After you sign in with your library card, you can search your library’s collection, place holds and checkout titles. You can also download titles to your phone, so you can listen even when you don’t have a signal or are in airplane mode. The duration of your loan, the number of titles you can check out at once, and the number of holds you can have all depend on your local library. The New York Public Library, for example, lets me have up to three loans and three holds at a time, with loans lasting up to two weeks. The Brooklyn Public Library allows up to five holds and 10 loans, with loans lasting up to three weeks.
If you don’t see your public library available in the Libby app, they either don’t have a digital library or host it through another app.
Membership: None, free with public library card
Audiobooks plus music: Spotify
- Music and audiobooks in one
- Great recommendation algorithm
- Limited listening time
Many NBC Select staffers already pay for a Spotify Premium subscription to stream ad-free music. The fact that the brand also includes audiobook listening as part of a subscription is a nice bonus.
“Spotify is convenient because they make everything so personalized and customizable — it’s easy to find new titles,” says NBC Select production coordinator Kelsey Fredricks. Listening to audiobooks on Spotify is laid out the same as listening to a podcast or album, with only chapters or sections instead of songs and episodes.
You can buy audiobooks individually or pay for a subscription and access the Spotify Premium catalog of titles as part of your membership. Subscribers get up to 15 hours of listening time from the Premium audiobook catalog. An average audiobook for Fredricks is about 10 hours, so you may only get through listening to one catalog book a month. (Unused listening hours expire at the end of each month and do not carry over.)
Membership: Optional, starts at $11.95 per month
Audiobooks plus everything else: Everand
- Much more than just audiobooks
- Subscription is 3 apps in 1
- Not quite unlimited access
If you want to check out a lot more than just audiobooks, consider a subscription to Everand. An Everand subscription includes access to three apps: Everand (audiobooks, ebooks, podcasts, magazines) Scibd (newspapers, research papers, recipes) and SlideShare (presentations and professional content). You can read any title in the library, no credits or purchase needed.
There are some limits on how many titles you can check out every month. These limits are based on each subscriber’s individual recent reading/listening activity, according to the brand. If you encounter a limit on a particular title, the title will be inaccessible to you until your next billing cycle, which can be a little frustrating.
Membership: Required, starts at $11.99 per month
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How to shop for audiobooks
Once you’ve decided on an audiobook app to try (or better yet, sign up for a free trial), it can be a bit hard to get started, especially if you’ve never listened to audiobooks before. Below are a few things to keep in mind when browsing:
There can be multiple versions of the same book
Audiobooks can range the gambit in terms of production. Some are voiced by star-studded casts, with different people narrating different characters. Others are read entirely by the author. Some popular titles and series have multiple versions with different narrators or casts.
You can usually listen to a sample of an audiobook before committing to it. If there are multiple versions of a book, preview each for a few minutes to get a better sense of which one sounds best to you.
App recommendations are great, but don’t forget about personal ones
Most audiobook apps have great recommendations based on your browsing and listening history. While we have discovered some great titles that way, a personal recommendation from a friend is always a great way to discover an amazing book. My advice? Get recommendations from both the app and your friends: that way, you’ll always have something on your list.
Why trust NBC Select?
I am a reporter at NBC Select where I cover technology including guides to smartwatches, tablets and over-ear headphones. For this piece, I combined my experience listening to audiobooks with that of NBC Select staffers to select the best audiobook apps. I also tried other top-rated audiobook apps for consideration.
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