There are many reasons why you might be thinking that you need to get your hands on an assortment of audio books. Perhaps the reason is to keep you company on a regular long commute, or for entertainment during those boring spots of a road trip, or to keep you sane while you stand in line, or to help you prepare for an important meeting. No matter what the reason, there are a number of websites these days that provide audio book rental services. You tap into their vast library of audio books on CD or tape. Some even allow you to download MP3 audio book titles.

There are quite a variety of rental services to be found online. Some of these rental services charge a fee each month, while others have an annual fee that you must pay in order to become a member and have access to their audio books on CD or their audio book downloads, depending on your preference.

An audio book rental service will have many different titles available on CD, and even some on cassette tape, and they operate pretty much in the same way as Netflix, which is a popular DVD rental service. After you join, you are able to create a list of the audio books you want to listen to from their extensive library. Once you have your list, which you can always update and change, you can prioritize your selections.

Next, the rental service will send the titles that are highest on your priority list if they are available at that time. If you choose a new audio book release that is very popular, then you might not receive it right away even if it is in the first position of chosen audio books on your list. For your first shipment, you will receive the audio books that are highest on your list if they are in stock at the time you set up your account.

When you receive your audio book titles from the rental service, you will also have a postage paid return envelop for each of the audio books so that you can send them back individually, as you are finished with each one. As soon as you send one back, another one will be sent out to you from the audio books on your list. In this way, you will always have at least one audio book on hand to listen to while others are being returned, processed, and while new audio book selections are being sent out to you.

Most of these companies have different subscription levels that you can choose from that will allow you to have anywhere from one audio book to four audio books rented at any one time. The fewer audio books you have at a time, the lower your monthly or yearly fee will be. While the cheapest way to go is to only have one audio book rental at a time, most people prefer to have a subscription that allows them to have at least two audio books available to them. This allows them to have one book rental that they can listen to while the other one is being returned.

For those who are on the road traveling often, who have extended commute times, or more than one family member who will listen to the audio books, then it is better to choose the higher subscription plans that let you have four or more audio book rental titles out at one time. Some of these services will let you change the plan for a month or two so that if you are headed out on vacation you can get additional titles to keep you entertained. Once you are back in town, you can then switch to a lesser plan.