Let's pretend that you are flat broke (not a hypothetical situation for some of us
); have grabbed already all of the free audiobooks, that you have any interest in, from all of the familiar sources (
LearnOutLoud,
et al.); and have listened to every audiobook that you have, at least two or three times. What are you to do? What
are you to do?
I remember several years ago that the subject of the
Noisetrade.com website came up, somewhere in this forum, as being a source for free music, and I think that there was a little bit of discussion about it. I don't think that I have seen anything, at my usual haunts on MobileRead, about them since then, although mentions of them may have been peppered here and there among the other posts. And, I don't remember the particular area that I'm about to tell you about being brought up at all.
I, at least, had forgotten--if I ever knew it at all--that NoiseTrade is a source for
free audiobooks also. I still had in the back of my head that they are a source of
free music, the music being from up-and-comers and other musicians hoping to "make it big" in the business. But, of
free audiobooks, no.
The audiobooks area, frankly, is easy to miss.
Noisetrade offers two major categories: "music," and "books" (if I have time today, I'll make a post on some thread about their ebook offerings); those headings are at the top of
NoiseTrade's homepage. The audiobooks area falls under the "music" heading. Unless you select "music," you will miss their audiobooks. In fact, it's easy to miss them, anyway, because they're mentioned at the bottom of the list of "music."
Don't expect there to be any current bestsellers among their audiobooks, of course. The selection is a mixed bag,
but for the most part, there are full-length audiobooks, excerpts, chapters, previews, and possibly abridgments. However,
there are treasures among the selection. Even a dyed-in-the-wool nonfictionista such as myself recognizes the name "Ted Dekker." Well, I don't know that there is a work (complete work, at least) of fiction by him, anywhere in the selection, but
in just quickly skimming over NoiseTrade's audiobook offerings, I saw an audiobook authored by him on how to
write fiction! Priceless. And I saw a promising non-fiction work, by another author, the list price of which is $17.99. Again, it's
free on
this site!
At first glance, it appears that
NoiseTrade divides the audiobooks into just two sections: "What's Trending," and "What's New." Well, it took me a while to discover this, but once you get to
the audiobooks area and mouse-over the "Books" heading, you will see a good list of different audiobook subjects. And, if you have in mind something specific,
NoiseTrade does, of course, have a search feature (it is rudimentary, however).
If my count is correct, there are currently 218 items in the
"audiobooks" section at NoiseTrade.
One final note: while the ebooks at
Noisetrade are technically
free, there is a request for a tip for the creator, at checkout, for probably every item in both "music" and "books." Of course, tipping is a kind thing to do, because some of the creators are "starving artists" at this point in their careers. Probably not Ted Dekker, though, of course.
