Should You Buy or Rent Audio Books?
Your decision to purchase versus rent your audio books is personal and depends alot on your patterns of listening to your audio books as well as cost concerns. Might you want to loan your audiobook to a friend or listen to it again in the future. Do you have a collection of audio books that you like to reread? Do you tend to buy or rent movies on dvd? You should answer these questions, explore other benefits of the two methods and then looking at particular audio book buying services and rental clubs.
The Benefits of Buying Audio Books
With buying audio books, you can buy just one or signup for a subscription service that is like a book club. Many of these subscription services work on a "credit" basis, where one credit would generally purchase one audio book. You can typically agree to programs with one or two credits per month.
You can purchase audio books via download or have them sent to you on CDs.
Buying via Download
Many audio books are downloadable from your computer so you aren't paying for physical packaging or shipping, and therefore these audio books are very affordable. This type of purchase is great for the person who doesn't mind owning their audio books in digital format
Buying on CD
Some audio books are only available for purchase on CDs which are mailed to you. Other audio books are available in CD format (as well as downloadable format) for buyers who prefer owning "physical" audio books. These audio books are typically more expensive due to the physical packaging and shipping costs. They often come in attractive boxes for display.
By either method , once you buy an audio book it is yours to listen to again and again.
The Benefits of Renting Audio Books
Audio book rentals are usually a subscription or club service that is similar to a dvd rental subscription service. These audio books are typically shipped to you on CDs. When you are finished with the audio book, you'll return it and then the next audio book on your list will be sent to you.
One of the benefits of a rental club service is that it saves you money over buying audio books. If you enjoy audio books on a regular basis, you can save quite a bit of money with the various audio book rental plans available.