I think part of my problem with audiobooks may come from years of driving with Radio 4 on and learning to be able to keep my focus on the road and not on the words. Though I may just always have had poor auditory processing. Things I've read before are easier (one of my favourite authors, Tansy Rayner Roberts, has a podcast where she reads her own work, but I can only listen to the stories I've already read in print) but that means audiobooks can only really be distractions and not a way of actually reading new things.