Do you enjoy audio books? Want to get some for free? Would you like to narrate a few, too? Here’s a great opportunity for you.
LibriVox creates and distributes free audios from books which are in the public domain — meaning no Harry Potter, sorry. In fact, most will be novels from the early 20th century and before– Joseph Conrad is on the current hitlist.
It’s an open source project, so they depend on volunteers like you to record a chapter or two at a time. Great practice for you budding podcasters out there. Sounds like a worthy project to support.
Personally, I used to enjoy audio books when I was more of a road warrior. Nowadays I work at home, so obviously I don’t have a long commute. Also, I read mostly business books now, and for me reading/ skimming the print versions is not only faster, but I retain a lot more. With print, it’s also easier to go back and re-read something, slap a post-it note on the page, or whip out the old highlighter.
I remember trying to listen to the cluetrain manifesto and a few of Seth Godin’s books on CD, but I just didn’t get as much out of the audio versions. My mind wanders. Besides, I know from my days on the radio you can “speak” only 200-250 words a minute, but I can read 800 or so when I’m in the groove.
But I digress. If you like audio books (and would like them even better for free), check out LibriVox. Their hit counter is probably going wild, since they just got links from boing boing, delicious and lifehacker.