Are you a bookworm who thinks that people should read more often? Got books that you want to share with the world, but don't have the money to buy the many books that you want to donate to people who need it? One way to get to these people who you think should be reading great stories is by making your own audio books.

It's really quite simple to make an audio book. You just need the time and the dedication, especially if you are planning to translate whole volumes into audio. Here are the steps to making your own audio book whenever you want to.

• Find a narrator – Wish you could read the books aloud yourself but can't be bothered? Then the first thing that you should do is audition for a narrator. Not all of us have a great reading voice and what you need is someone who can read the way a great storyteller does.

Great narrators are hard to find but if you are patient enough and if you have a good offer in terms of providing a small honorarium for services, then you should find one. It's best that you have both a male and female narrator so that people who take your audio book will have a choice between the two. It's important that a person does not sound too robotic or irritating.

• Pick a format – Now, there are 3 major formats that you can choose from. The first is a cassette tape. Cassettes are still around and they may be cheap but not many people have cassette players these days unless they listen to music in cars or on old stereos. But that does not mean that this is a bad medium. This is still a great way to have audio books shared with friends.

Another choice is to record audio into CDs. This is one of the more popular formats but doing this yourself might be difficult if you are not technically capable. You will also need some expensive pieces of equipment like a computer, a CD burning drive, some capable software and the blank CDs. The blanks may be cheap but the point is that you still have to buy them.

This last format is probably your best option: the mp3. Mp3s are a great format for audio books because they are small and they can be stored in different devices such as iPods, mp3 players, computers, and any device that play mp3s. You also don't have to buy anything physical to make them, save for the computer and the needed software. Once you record an audio book, you just need to upload the mp3 to a site where people can download them.

• Get rights – Now, you can't just up and record audio books for the sake of recording them. This can be borderline piracy. This is especially sensitive if you are planning to sell audio books to friends or on the Internet. Make sure that you get permission to record audio books from the authors of the actual books themselves. This is the most difficult thing to do but once you do get permission, you won't be doing anything that is illegal.