You're buying eleven hours of somebody's voice. Hear it first.

Read by the author — Which is right for some books and wrong for a lot of them. Say which this is and be honest about it — a writer is not automatically a performer and most know it
Read by an actor — Better technically, almost always. What can be lost is the sense that the person telling you this is the person it happened to, which for a memoir is most of the book
One narrator, not a cast — Full-cast productions are a different thing and a good one. This is one voice for eleven hours, which is a relationship rather than a performance
Accents and pronunciation — Checked with the author, including the place names. The commonest complaint about any audiobook is a mispronounced town that somebody grew up in
How long it took — Nine days in a booth for eleven hours of finished audio. Worth knowing, because it is why an audiobook costs what it costs
If the voice isn't for you — That is a completely legitimate reason not to buy it and nobody should feel odd about it. It is why the sample is at the top of this page rather than the bottom

A credit is not a price — One credit costs the same whether it buys a three-hour book or a thirty-hour one. Spending it on the longest thing you actually want is the whole trick, and nobody explains it
Subscriptions vs buying once — If you finish fewer than about one audiobook a month, buying them singly is cheaper. That is bad for me to say and it is true
"Included with a subscription" can end — Titles rotate out of included catalogues. A book you bought is yours; a book that was included may not be there next year
The bookshop-supporting option — Same price, and a share goes to an independent shop you pick. It is the only difference between these links that costs you nothing
Formats and DRM — Say plainly which retailers here sell a file you keep and which sell access. People deserve to know before rather than after
Nothing is sold on this page — Every button leaves for a retailer. Point them at your own links in the editor

It's free, and it isn't a favour — Libraries pay for audiobook licences — usually far more than a retail copy costs, and often per loan. The author is paid every time somebody borrows it
You need a card and an app — That is the whole barrier. Most cards can be got online in about four minutes without going anywhere
If they don't have it — Request it. Libraries buy on request, the form takes a minute, and a single request is often enough to get a title bought
The wait is real — Popular titles have a queue, because a library licence covers one listener at a time. Join it and forget about it — it arrives eventually and it is still free
Why this is first on the list — Because the alternative is telling people to spend fifteen pounds on something they can have today for nothing, and hoping they don't find out
What it doesn't do — It does not help a book in its first week the way a sale does. Both things are true and you are allowed to pick either

Eleven hours forty — At normal speed. About two weeks of commutes, or four long walks, or one very committed weekend
Listening faster isn't cheating — A great many people run audiobooks at 1.3 or 1.5 and take in every word. Nobody gets a worse book for finishing it in eight hours
Nor is going back — Rewinding thirty seconds because your attention went is the audiobook equivalent of re-reading a paragraph, which nobody has ever felt guilty about
Falling asleep to it — Is a legitimate way to use one. The sleep timer exists because so many people do it, and the book does not mind
Some people read only by ear — Because of dyslexia, sight loss, or hands that can't hold a book. For them an audiobook is not a convenient version of reading — it is reading, and it is worth saying that out loud on a page like this
Which is why the sample is free — And why the chapter list, the running time and the narrator's name are all up here rather than buried in a retailer's small print