I finally try out Audible.com

Recently, there has been a huge surge in audiobook use. This is largely because of the easy access to the medium via smartphones and MP3 players and other devices (hooray technology!), and as a result, productions are getting better and better. For me, this is excellent news; I have been a long-time lover of audiobooks, ever since I would make the 6-hour drive to and from Ithaca during my college years. Back then my best (and really one of my only) audiobook friends was Bill Bryson, who is a wonderful narrator of his own works, but now I've expanded my use even more.

With a 40-minute commute to and from work, I don't know what I would do without my stories, and on my long training runs for my first half marathon (coming up in October), books help the time and the miles pass quickly. This is why I was excited to have the opportunity to try Audible.com for free, after someone from their team reached out to me.

Audible is a subscription service available through Amazon.com that is expressly for audiobooks. You sign up for one of their plans, the most basic of which starts at $14.95/month, and in return you get one credit per month to spend on any audiobook available. One credit is usually equal to one audiobook, so basically you are paying the member fee for one book per month, plus you get member discounts on every other book. You can purchase however many books per month you want this way. I know that sometimes they have member sales and free titles for members, but as I only used the service for the free trial period, I haven't seen what those sales look like myself.

Audible has some other great perks that come with your membership. You can exchange any audiobook you buy, whether you pay for it in credits or with your credit card, for any other book if you don't like it, no questions asked (as a side note, this service disappears if you cancel your membership). There is also this mystical thing called Whispersync, which is super cool if you have a Kindle. Basically, if you are reading a Kindle book and are listening to the same audiobook, you can sync the two up so that if you put one version down, the other device will bring you right where you left off. Crazy new technology, I tell ya.

Once I bought my books using the credits I was given during my free trial, I just had to click "Download" to put them on my Mac and they automatically went to iTunes. I did have some trouble figuring out how to get them onto my iPod, since they didn't automatically sync with it, but after asking Twitter I figured it out (thanks Kimberly!). Turns out all I had to do was click and drag the files from iTunes to my iPod while the latter was connected to my computer. My first choice was Dad Is Fat by Jim Gaffigan, which was very funny and worth listening to on audio.

I loved my experience with Audible, and their selection is huge. If I wasn't a librarian and didn't get all my audiobooks for free through my library and Overdrive, I would definitely consider becoming a member. As it stands, though, I am able to get most of the books I want without having to pay for them, and my budget doesn't have enough wiggle room right now to pay for a service like this. Maybe one day!

I would like to say, though, that canceling was extremely easy and no-hassle. The best part is, I get to keep the audiobooks I bought with my credit even after cancellation—they are still available on my account when I sign in. And if I decide one day to rejoin, I can use that same account. It's all attached to your Amazon account, so if you already have one of those, you don't even need to give a separate credit card.

Interested? You can try it out for free for one month! Just click here. You'll get one credit to use, no obligations. If you decide to keep it, it will charge your credit card after one month and give you another credit. If not, it's easy to cancel.

I know I sound like a long commercial, but I really did like the service, and I love audiobooks. I think it's wonderful that this medium has gained so much popularity, and as a result, more people are reading.

Disclaimer: Audible.com sponsored this post by providing me with credits to try their service. This in no way affected my review, and any opinions expressed here are my own.