Zunes can now use audiobooks!  Two sites that are worth mentioning - because we can get free audiobooks from them - are  audible.com and overdrive.com. Audible are currently offering a free 30-trial to Zune users which includes three free audiobooks of your choice. Which is cool - but remember, if you forget to cancel your free trial, you will get billed for $22.95 every month till you remember to cancel

Overdrive is a whole other ballgame - and its great to see Zune making it possible for us to use this service. It has been available on iPod  and now  it cab be used by that Zune owners as well.

What overdrive does is makes it possible to borrow books from libraries via the Zune format - in other words,  as an audiobook. Now only some libraries offer the service and only some books are available in this format. But a quick check at overdrive will tell you whether there is a library near you that offers this service. And its free! Potentially dozens of books  can be enjoyed this way!

For example, I am a Lee Child fan - and 3 of his books have been published in the MP3 format by Books on Tape, including “Gone Tomorrow” which I have not yet read. Overdrive shows that this title is available at dozens of libraries around the US. When I click the link to the State Library at Seattle for example, there it is!

So long as we are a member of the library, we can borrow this book for free - download it to our PC and then  to our Zune. Now most libraries explain that the OverDrive WMA Audiobook excerpts are delivered as WMA files. These  can be used with any version of Windows Media Player.

To use a full OverDrive WMA Audiobook title, you will need to download OverDrive Media Console 1.0 or newer and complete a one-time ‘Windows Media Player Security Upgrade’ on Windows Media Player version 9 or newer.

Its not difficult and every library provides guidance to help get us setup. Check it out!

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