I came to the site originally to get DVD's into new homes and trade them for audiobooks.  Just lately I notice that very few audiobooks are being posted each day.  What's going on?  Ordinarily after I finish an audiobook I post it again, but is that an exercise in futility now?

Personally, I've been getting so many audiobooks lately that are unusable due to scratches and skips that I'm about to give up.

MaryF

Mary - try a different player before you give up.I have some audio CDs that won't play on one device and yet does great on another.  So the members who sent you the books may have been able to listen to the book without skips and thought they were sending out a perfectly good audiobook.

I can't even find good ones at the bookstore anymore.  I think audible.com has been my lifesaver, but those can't be traded on PBS.  I checked y'all's wishlists but did not have any of the audiobooks you want.  :(

For the past few months, there seemed to quite a few forum posters complaining about bad CDs being posted for audiobook trades, so maybe that's influenced a bunch of people not to trade them anymore?

I have posted and mailed about 6 audiobooks this Summer. I bought a bag full at a yardsale -some alto from 1999 were still new in their boxes. They were M.C. Beatons and so good I knew that others wanted them. I have found that some audios may not play in my portable player , but do well on my laptop or car. I just gave up trying to [play them on my portable. Love my audio CD's. I have given up on cassettes.

I think audio will be one area that gets hit by the digital world since they cost more already -> e-readers and downloads, neither are swappable.

I haven't noticed a dry spell lately, but I always check my library first for audios. 
I also belong to the *Unmoderated* Audio Book Virtual Box where I get a lot of audios.  I highly recommend it.

Thanks for checking my wishlist!  Maybe some more patience will bring some results.

Sas, thanks for posting and thanks for the suggestion.  I have sent you a PM.

Well I know I am personally trading less audiobooks for a couple of different reasons: I'm getting most of mine from the library now and I have many unlistened to books from my now cancelled audible account.  Also I had more credits built up then I was comfortable keeping so I stopped posting anything.

I do have the first 3 Rogue Angel books by Alex Archer on CD to post soon.

I listen to many audiobooks on my long commute, but mine are rented from simplyaudiobooks.com, which has a fabulous collection.

I only have some audiobooks on my wishlist here (The Jim Butcher Dresden Files series), they just don't come along for swapping.  Some of them are not available through my audio rental club, so I will eventually have to get them from my local library.

As Melanie said, I think audio books on CD will be the first "traditional" media form to die at the hands of digital technology.  I recently discovered Playaways (see image below) offered by our library system - they are amazing!  An entire audio book on a device half the size of my cell phone.  No more damaged, lost or stuck discs, no changing discs while driving (yes, I know I shouldn't do that!), etc.  Now it's my quest to find a reliable adapter to listen to the Playaway through my vehicle's audio system.

I still do audio cassettes in my car (16 year old Saturn with 230K miles) but it's been several months since I traded one here.  I can find entire bags of Books on Tape at library, church and yard sales for $5 or less these days, so it seems still to spend 2 credits for just one book here, especially since audio books are so much lighter and cheaper to mail than regular books.  I also just traded the lot I had posted with a friend for a bunch of herso I have nothing on my shelf at the moment.

That said, I'm always checking the Book Bazaar for deals, but it doesn't seem as if people have been offering many the last few months and the ones I've seen had nothing I'm interested in.

I tried the Playaways from my library and hated them - poor sound quality and awkward-for-me controls.  I'm much happier with my Kindle and my Audible.com subscription for newer audios.

Thanks everyone------you have all been knowledgeable, kind, and generally AMAZING.  Angelika, the Jim Butcher Dresden Files series is very popular, and in addition a lot of fans (Dresden addicts) re-play the whole series every time Butcher offers another book in the series.The audiobooks are very expensive, and once people have them, they tend to hang onto them.  For a while my library system had one Dresden Files audiobook  in interlibrary loan, and then it seemed to disappear from the collection.  I have found the best way to get the series is to go to Audible.com and burn the CD's on my computer while I'm doing something else.  James Marsters, the narrator for all but one, does an outstanding job of voicing the characters and bringing the series to life.  There's a good forum online at Jim_Butcher.com  also.

Thank you Barb, that is good information.

I got some of the Dresden Files audiobooks through Simplyaudiobooks, but they didn't have all of them.  I love the audios and the narration by James Marsters is outstanding.  I tried reading the books but it was just not the same.  I will try the local library but it seems chances are very slim, especially since I want the first six to listen to, I listened to many of his later ones (book 8 and above).

I may have to go out and actually buy them and then re-sell them to amazon or something like that.  I don't listen to books twice, even though I re-read many of my favourite books.

I will try audible.com and see how much that service costs, compared to buying them.

Just my 2 cents about playaways:  THEY SUCK!  I've been listening to them quite a bit lately.  They often have poor audio quality.  Sometimes I have to turn them up all the way to hear them (and I'm not hard of hearing).  The little screen that shows you what track you are on is often half burned out, so that you can't read it.  When the battery dies midway through the book, it goes back to the last place you stopped the book prior to the battery dying.  Both of the library systems I use are now leaning more toward playaways than CDs, and I hate it.  If you have a car that has a place to plug in an MP3 player, the cord to plug in the playaway is the same.  It looks like the plug for headphones at both ends.  But be aware that you will have to turn the volume up to ridiculous levels to be able to hear it in your car.  I thought it wasn't working, but I had to turn the volume up to 50 when I normally have it at 20.

I'm not a fan of the playaways either.  I only get them if that's the only audio edition my library has.

I don't get why have to send the headphones with them when you post them here.  I mean anyone who routinely listens to audiobooks is going to have headphones.  Plus, correct me if I'm wrong, sendign the headphones means it can't go media mail.  So if playaways are rarely posted, that is probably why.  I usually won't even wish for them unless it's a rarely posted audiobook and I want to get in every possible line.

Thanks for sharing your experiences with Playaways.  I must be lucky with the first one I've tried ... I'll be cautiously optimistic for future use.

In all of the years I've been a member here, I've never had an audio WL fulfilled. I haven't given up but I just figured not many people ever posted them. I guess it's just the ones I want!

Have never used playaways, although my library does have them.  I prefer to borrow audio cds and rip them into mp3s on my cd and then transfer them to my iPod.  Regarding the earphones with playaways--I'm surprised that the library includes these--and it seems a little icky to me.  I certainly wouldn't want to use earphones that I had no idea whose ears they had been in!

I can only speak to my own experience with audiobooks.  I mostly check them out at the library, either on CD or playaways (love!)  With audiobooks on CDs, I sometimes pick them up if I see them for cheap at a local thrift store and am mildly interested.  I may play them, they may sit on my shelf for a year, I may start to listen to them and find I'm not interested - so then I post them here.  But I've rarely listened to the whole thing straight through on CD.  For some, I may have listened to part of it, and read part of it - my usual M.O. if I'm really enjoying an audiobook is to then pick up the same book at the library, so I can switch back and forth from audio to text.

I only say this because I'm taking a bit of a chance in posting them, as I've almost never listened to an audiobook completely when I post it.  I do a visual inspection (found out once I was actually missing a CD that way) before I post, but I don't listen to every minute.  If I see a scratch, I try to listen to that CD to see if if plays.  I've not had a problem transaction on an audio CD yet, but I'm a bit more hesitant to post them than a book I can look at and have certainty it is postable.

I like the playaways, as they are much more convenient for running and activities outside of my car and home.  My library doesn't provide the earphones - those you need to provide yourself - but they do include one battery.  I've had to change the battery before, and I consider it my duty to do so if it is a library playaway and I notice the battery waning.  Re: playing them in the car, you can buy an audio cord with 2 male ends that look like the end of your headphones.  Plug one end into the playaway and the other into your stereo.  For most cars <10 years old, there is a plug somewhere near your stereo (mine is in the center dash console, in what appears to be a storage space) where you can plug it in.  That is how everyone is able to play music off their phones in the car.

Both library systems I use are the same on playaways:  no batteries and no headphones are provided.  I only use rechargable batteries (it is illegal to throw away batteries here in CA), so I wouldn't have any replacement batteries.  I don't think headphones should be required here either.  I'm not sure about media mail, but I can see using the argument that the headphones are technically part of a playaway book.