eStories audiobooks offer a good alternative

NAME eStories (estories.com/2cdt)

WHAT Download audiobooks and sync them to your devices.

HOW MUCH From $11.99 a month ($9.99 if billed annually)

WHAT’S GOOD If you download audiobooks, you might think that Audible.com is the only game in town. It isn’t. At eStories you’ll find current best-sellers to classics in its growing 100,000-plus book library, and you can search for them by title, author, category, language, book duration and format. Subscriptions, which can be canceled at any time, begin at $11.99 (vs. Audible’s $14.95) for one book a month and, for those who move about, includes connectivity and syncing to up to five devices — including your Bluetooth-enabled car — through eStories’ Cloud. Cloud storage is unlimited and you can upload audiobooks you already own. Voracious readers should consider upgrading to a plus (two books a month) or premium (five books a month) account, where rates can drop to as low as $8 a book with an annual subscription. Members have six months to use credits and, the site says, up to 30 days to return a book if not 100 percent satisfied. Unlike Audible, 90 percent of eStories’ books are DRM-free (DRM coding prevents copying and sharing of files, among other things) and download as MP3 files. Memberships include one free book, but Newsday readers can receive two free books by going to estories.com/2cdt

WHAT’S NOT The site’s library is smaller than Audible’s, though we found about 85 percent of the titles we searched. It would be nice if eStories included the audiobook’s cover art in the download.

BOTTOM LINE Listen to a book a month (or more) at a bargain price.