CNET's Donald Bell gives the Booksfree audiobook service a test drive.
Donald Bell
Donald Bell has spent more than five years as a CNET senior editor, reviewing everything from MP3 players to the first three generations of the Apple iPad. He currently devotes his time to producing How To content for CNET, as well as weekly episodes of CNET's Top 5 video series.
Booksfree.com works like a Netflix for audiobook CDs. Users pay a flat fee for a monthly subscription, and receive a rotation of audiobook CDs sent to them by mail. Booksfree isn't the first audiobook service to try the Netflix model, but it's one of the most affordable we've seen, with subscriptions as low as $10.99/mo.
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Booksfree audiobooks
After establishing an account and adding titles to your shipping queue, Booksfree creates a personalized recommendations page based on the characteristics of books you've ordered or rated. The premise is similar to Netflix, but could use a little visual pizazz.
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Booksfree audiobooks
Each audiobook on Booksfree is given its own page, complete with book synopsis, community rating, cover art, and other information. Support for multiple formats distinguishes Booksfree from other audiobook sites. Depending on the subscription plan, users can order paperback books, CD audiobooks, or MP3-CD audiobooks (CD-ROMS of audiobooks encoded as MP3).
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Booksfree audiobooks
Booksfree subscribers can add as many titles as they want to their queue, regardless of their subscription plan. Just like Netflix, titles in the queue and be easily rearranged or deleted.
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Booksfree audiobooks
Booksfree audiobook CDs are shipped in resealable padded envelopes with prepaid return postage. Whether the audiobook comes as 5 CDs or 50, Booksfree will send you the entire set in a labeled booklet of CD sleeves. You can hold onto the CDs as long as you like, without penalty. When you're done, throw the CDs back in the sleeve, reseal the envelope, and send them back.
