Audiobooks & E-books: Everything You Need to Know For Your Homeschool

“I’m totally new to the world of audiobooks & ebooks.  Do I need a new device?”

“Audiobooks are so expensive–can we get them for free?” 

“I hate connecting devices to my computer, will I have to do that?”

Thankfully, the days of plugging your old-school iPod or e-reader into your computer to sync are over!  The process is straightforward and quick.  I promise!

Where is the best place to get audiobooks & ebooks?

Paying for digital products still feels weird to me. I know that digital items still cost money to produce, it just feels weird to pay for a book that I can’t inhale that delightful new book smell. Generational thing? Perhaps. The internet was just a baby when I was in college, my kids think nothing of paying for digital things.

With that said, we do intermittently subscribe to Audible and/or Kindle Unlimited. Kindle Unlimited includes selected ebooks & audiobooks, while Audible offers audiobooks. But here’s a little secret. You don’t have to subscribe to Audible in order to buy books from them. They frequently offer books for $4-8/apiece.

But FREE is always my first choice, especially at the pace we devour audiobooks! 

The library is our always first stop for books–print, electronic or audio.  Our library offers two main ways to access digital books.  We can check out books through their Hoopla subscription or through their Overdrive/Libby subscription.  {Libby & Overdrive access the same book database and are put out by the same company.} 

{Does your library not offer digital books?  Need a bigger selection?  Or just MORE?  I’ll show you how to do that.}

Project Gutenberg is a long-time site dedicated to making it easy to access books in the public domain.  You don’t need an e-reader in order to use these books–you can read them online.

Librivox is kinda’ the audio corollary to Project Gutenberg.  Brought to you by volunteers, Librivox offers thousands of free audiobooks for you to enjoy. You can search by title, subject, genre, etc.  There are even books in more than a dozen languages!

Okay…but how do we listen to audiobooks?

Through the Apps
Overdrive/Libby, Audible, and Librivox all have apps that allow you to listen to your audiobooks.

In the Car
Our old minivan didn’t have Bluetooth capabilities, so we used an auxiliary cable to stream books from my phone through the car’s speakers.  Now we use Apple CarPlay to connect them.

I’ve turned up the volume on my phone in a pinch!

External Speakers & Smart Devices
If you have traditional, external speakers (like Bose, etc.), Bluetooth or an auxiliary cord should be all you need.

“Alexa, play A House Without Windows on Audible.”

Alexa-enabled smart devices will read your Audible books to you. If you want to use her for an audiobook from another source, like Libby, you’ll need to connect your phone to your Alexa device using Bluetooth.  Ditto to using a smart device from Google or Apple. 

What device should we use for ebooks?

E-readers come in two types. Back-lit devices, like your phone or iPad, are fine for the casual reader.  But if you want to use it on a semi-regular basis or as a replacement for print books, those aren’t the best choice.  In addition to the eye strain they can cause, you’re going to be fighting a draining battery.  Who wants to be in the last chapter of your book and discover your device has just 3% left?!!

So you’ve decided it would be a very casual user and you already have a tablet?  Head to your app store and download Amazon’s Kindle app.  E-books you check out through Overdrive connect through Amazon to download.  If you have an Amazon Fire tablet, you shouldn’t need to download an app.

Does a traditional e-reader better fit your lifestyle?  This is my device of choice.  And I’m partial to the Amazon Kindle readers. {I actually have the Kindle Paperwhite.} After a bit of adjustment, it really does feel like you’re reading a regular print book.  The battery life can last weeks and you can easily store hundreds of books on your reader. At the pool or on the porch, you won’t battle with an irritating glare.

It’s super easy to download your books onto your device.  If you check one out through Overdrive, you’ll follow the same link over to Amazon to check out the book.  Once you’ve done that, connect your reader to WiFi and it will sync any new books.

What if I want to put something on it that isn’t an actual ebook?

A great blog post you want to read at soccer practice, a great .pdf ebook you’ve downloaded. Amazon makes it easy to load .pdfs onto your Kindle. You can e-mail .pdfs and it will load onto your Kindle when you connect to WiFi.  The set-up is simple.

(To put an article/blog post into .pdf format, I use the ‘save as pdf’ format in the print screen window.)

Or you can use the Send to Kindle Chrome extension to send .pdfs, news articles, or even blog posts like this one!

You’re ready to read!

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