How to get into listening to audiobooks in 7 easy steps

Want to get started listening to audiobooks? Here’s the ultimate guide

Audiobooks have become incredibly popular, and it’s great to be able to combine reading with a walk or the practical tasks of everyday life. Haven’t jumped on the bandwagon yet? Here are a few tips and tricks to learn how to listen to audiobooks.

1. Choose your provider

There are now a lot of audiobook services where you can listen to audiobooks. Most of them offer a free 14-day or 1-month trial period where you can see if you like the service’s user design and offerings. You can also find a large selection of audiobooks on your local digital library. Here, listening to audiobooks is usually free.

2. Choose your equipment

Listening to audiobooks doesn’t require a lot of equipment – a smartphone or tablet and a good pair of headphones. The most important thing is that they’re comfortable to wear and easy to take with you.

3. Take it easy and get cozy the first time

If you’re a beginner, it’s a good idea to create a space for quiet and contemplation when listening. Find some good, comfortable earbuds, put your phone on flight mode and settle into your favorite chair. Once you’re an experienced audiobook listener, you can listen to audiobooks whenever and wherever it suits you. That’s actually the great thing about audiobooks: You can listen anywhere – in the car, on the bike, while cooking or taking a walk.

4. Pick the right type of book

Also, think about which book you start with. For some people, it works well to start with plot-driven literature where it’s easy to follow the story. This could be a crime novel, for example. You can also start by listening to a book you’ve read before. This makes it easier to follow the story. Short stories are also a good place to start. Try different genres – you might prefer different genres on audiobook than when you read physical books.

5. Train your ears

Listening to audiobooks is a completely different reading experience – and you may need to get used to “reading with your ears” before it feels natural. Start by listening in shorter intervals – say 10 minutes at a time – and slowly increase the time.

6. Find the right voice

The narrator is crucial to your reading experience – and the voices we like to listen to are very different. Always give the narrator a chance – sometimes it takes 20-30 minutes into the audiobook to get used to the narrator’s voice and pace. If that doesn’t help, there’s no shame in skipping an audiobook because you don’t like the narrator. Explore the many audiobooks and take note of your favorite narrators. On most streaming services, you can search by narrator and maybe find books you wouldn’t have read otherwise.

7. Get into the habit

Audiobooks can be used in many ways in your everyday life. They can be a supplement to your reading, your favorite way to read or a fun shared activity for the whole family. Experiment with different ways of listening to find out what works best for you.

Maybe you prefer listening to audiobooks on the go to take advantage of transportation time to read. Maybe audiobooks are a sacred break in everyday life, where you can close your legs and disappear into another world. Maybe you can listen to the same audiobook as a family while drawing or eating dinner. Maybe you prefer to listen to audiobooks while you go for a run or fall asleep to wind down at the end of the day.

Download or stream audiobooks?

When listening to audiobooks digitally, you can either choose to download or stream your audiobooks.

If you download an audiobook, you pay a one-time fee to own the audiobook – just like if you bought a physical book. Downloadable audiobooks can be purchased where you would normally buy ebooks online.

Streaming an audiobook is typically done through a streaming service where you pay monthly for a fixed subscription. There are several different streaming services on the market with varying prices and offerings.

At Saga Egmont, we have made it our everyday mission to make sure you have as many titles available as high quality audiobooks in as many platforms possible – worldwide – so there’s always a good story for your ears.