It is commonly accepted that portable media device manufacturers designed their products for music and not for audio books. However, with the increasing popularity of audio books, more and more people are embracing portable media technology in order to enjoy audio books; we are no longer limited to listening to downloaded audio books on our personal computers and laptops.

Unfortunately, not all mp3 players are the same, and there are some that are better geared toward audio books than others. Below are a few things to keep in mind when you are looking for an mp3 player for th main purpose of listening to audio books.

* Make sure the mp3 player has a good volume feature. Quite often it is difficult to hear a person’s voice when there is a lot of background noise. For example, if you’re listening to an audio book while jogging and you come across a construction site, you could miss some of the audio to the sound of the tools.

* Examine how each mp3 player handles interruption. When listening to music and the mp3 player gets interrupted for whatever reason, it’s no big deal to skip ahead to the last track you were listening to. With an audio book, this isn’t so simple. Make sure the mp3 player has a memory feature that automatically goes back to where the track was interrupted.

* Be sure the mp3 player has enough memory. Often audio book files are much larger than music files, so be sure the mp3 player has the capacity to hold your books.

* Don’t sacrifice quality and durability for size. Smaller mp3 players are more pleasing to the eye, but they are sometimes of lower quality.

* Make sure the mp3 player was manufactured by a reputable company. Don’t buy just any mp3 player because it costs less.

* Be sure the mp3 player can read encrypted files. Most publishers want to protect their product from piracy, so be sure your mp3 player has DRM (Digital Rights Management) capabilities, often referred to as WMA DRM.

There are also car stereo systems available that have CD players with mp3 capabilities. These devices are great for those who have long commutes and are tired of listening to the same old stuff on the radio. If you already have a portable mp3 player and you want to listen to audio books in your car, but you don’t have a stereo system with mp3 capabilities, don’t fret; you can simply pick up an AUX socket to connect your mp3 player to your car’s CD player.