I figured out pretty quickly that audiobooks are expensive, so I needed to put myself on a budget. At a pace of 3-4 hours a day, I read at least one book a week in this format. They're at least as expensive as hard back books, so I could easily spend more than $100 a month. I've developed a two-pronged approach, using Audible and audiobooks from the county library.
I have a subscription for Audible that provides 2 credits per month for $22.95. One credit = one book. I think two books a month for $23 is reasonable. I use these credits for expensive, full-price books. I also consider how long the books are. I don't really want to spend a credit on a book that'll only get me through a couple of days. But even frugally spent, the credits only get me--at most--two weeks of listening.
After I've gone through my two credits I either listen to one of the Audible Daily Deals I've downloaded or check out a book through the library. Every day Audible has a Daily Deal. These books are generally $5 or less. It's a great way to try something new. My husband is a fan of H.P. Lovecraft, so when a collection of Cthulhu short stories popped up for $1.95, I bit. Was it worth a credit? No, it was worth $1.95. I now have a cache of cheap books for when I don't have any credits.
Audible has a return policy if you don't like a book for some reason. I've only taken advantage of it once so far. Before I became as parsimonious as I am now, I bought the seminal police procedural, The Laughing Policeman, for $8 or $9. The narration was awful. I was refunded right away. I try to be very judicious when choosing books and this is the only time so far that I've been unhappy enough to return one. I should have trusted the reviews that complained about the narration and listened to a sample of the book first.
The other option is checking out books from the library. Axis360 is the app my county library system uses for ebooks. It's free, but boy you pay in time and frustration. The Axis360 app is horrible. I don't need to go into it here, just read the 1-star reviews and believe it all. But, hey, free audiobooks.
Why not go to the library and get books on MP3s and don't bother with the app? Downloading is still more convenient and the last time I perused the physical audiobooks at the library, I couldn't find anything I wanted.
The county doesn't have a very good selection of fiction to download--at least that I want to read--and if you're reading a series, don't expect to find all the books (Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake trilogy only had the last book). But there's a lot of history and that's something I'm trying to catch up on (Hi, World War II! Long time, no see!).
Why bother with the library? It's free!! Actually, I'm paying for it already through taxes, so why not benefit.
All in all, this is costing about $30-$35 a month (not including county taxes). I'd like to get the cost down a bit, but for now it's worth it.
I'm planning to write little reviews of the books I'm reading. The first up is In the Garden of the Beasts by Erik Larson, who also wrote Devil in the White City. Stay tuned!