For the holidays last year I was gifted 6 months of Audible since I like to play audiobooks in my car. I signed in and found I could receive a total of one book a month (6 total) and 2 of their free “Audible originals” which turned out to be a choice of two out of 6 offerings that they select and that I usually wasn’t interested in. So after this free gift was up, I figured that I would check it out to see what you get for their normal $15 a month subscription. Well, now I find that the above IS their normal subscription. In other words, they want you to pay $15 a month for ONE BOOK and 2 free “originals” that they create and for which you have an extremely limited choice. This doesn’t make much sense to me since I can get the majority of these books from my library for free. Is there some great benefit to Audible that I do not get, besides the fact that they do have some books that the library does not?
Another thread with almost this exact same question: Does Audible just suck or am I doing it wrong?
This may not help you but it’s served as a warning to me to never subscribe to Audible.
I just read through the other thread. I guess since I don’t feel the need to actually own the book, it didn’t make sense. Since overdrive was updated to the Libby app it is apparently much more user friendly. I saw someone commented that their library only had 72 audiobooks and I can see why they would need to buy them. I just checked my local library and there are currently about 7500 audiobooks available to download. Maybe when I finish listening to all of them I will have to start buying them.
With all the Netflix clones out there, it has always seemed weird to me that no one tried to Netflix audiobooks.
One time when I was looking for a particular audiobook, I found it was cheaper just to buy the physical CDs. Sure, I had to rip them, but that took only a few minutes.
I remeber books on tape and i used to get their catalogs but back then they had readings that clocked in anywhere from 8-15 hours on 12 tapes … I read the first lonesome dove book cover to cover in 5
I mean audiobooks would be great if i wanted to hear a book while i did something else but it wouldn’t replace reading a book …although somethings are better on tape like Shakespeare or the oxford "rise and fall of the roman empire "type of scholarly stuff
If you want to listen to a current best seller, it’ll take 6 months of waitlist to get it from Overdrive/your library. In those cases, I shop around (B&N, iTunes) and audiobook will run $30-50. If you want to keep up with current literature, Audible is a good deal.
(I’m too cheap for Audible, so I wait. And wait…)
I agree that audiobooks don’t replace actual reading, but I find them invaluable for long car journeys or my 25 minute walk to work. I also enjoy listening to some great actors who read them.
Also, considering audiobooks cost about about double what an Audible subscription costs, I’m happy to pay it.
Yes, that’s what it comes down to: Audible is for people who want to buy/own audiobooks (as opposed to having temporary access to them).
When you were gifted 6 months of Audible, essentially you were given 6 audiobooks, except you get to choose which ones, and you get them at the rate of one per month. (Plus there are some other benefits, but they mostly involve opportunities to buy, or in a few cases receive free, audiobooks.)
Whether it’s audiobooks or other things (books, movies, music), some people like the “buy specific content to own and collect and keep indefinitely” model, and some people like the “pay for temporary access to a library of content” model. In the other thread I listed some reasons why someone might want to buy audiobooks—but, different strokes for different folds.
I love my Audible subscription. It helps that I’m an avid fan of epic stories that run 40-80 hours per book, so I really get my value for each month’s credit.
As far as the benefit for me, I personally am not a music listener, and I don’t have as much time to read as I would like. So, I listen to audiobooks while I work. I have found the one-a-month limitation to still be cheaper than any other option (library not included, of course). And if there is something I absolutely MUST have, they always have 3-credit packages for purchase, at $12 per credit, which still generally saves money. The nice thing is, the credits don’t seem to be tied to a monetary value, so a book is one credit, whether that book is a $60 Brandon Sanderson epic or a $15 Jon Ronson story.
As I noted, I think I probably just have a really good library system. It helps that I don’t really care about listening to the latest bestseller so I don’t have to put up with long wait lists and as noted they have 7500 books that are currently available without any hold time. I have a 30 minute commute each way so I go through about a book every 1-2 weeks. If I really want something current I put it on hold at the library and when it comes up they sent it to me. I used to have to actually go to the library and pick out 4-5 books on CD/cassette to listen to and doing it on my phone is 1000x more convenient. I also recommend again for those using Overdrive that you upgrade to Libby. It is a real improvement and a lot more user friendly. I think I will keep a list of books I want to listen to that are not available through the library and if there seem to be a lot I will consider retrying Audible since it apparently does save money over buying the physical CD.
Audible has a few membership offers. They vary by number of credits and price, so the more you pay, the cheaper the cost per credit. The cheapest is 9.56 per credit (i.e. per book). That is less value for the 5 hour books but great value for the Complete Sherlock Holmes read by Stephen Fry and coming in at a bit under 63 hours. That’s a month’s worth of 1 hour commutes! If you want something specific, they have a huge selection, but yeah, if you can find it elsewhere it will often be cheaper.
I listen to audiobooks while walking Leet the Wonder Dog[sup]TM[/sup]. There are tons of free audiobooks on YouTube, especially from librivox.org. Those are all “public domain”, but I will be dead before I read all the old books I want to.
Regards,
Shodan
Do you feel a similar confusion about people who buy physical books instead of going to the library? Audible is just a digital bookstore.
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Since I still have a couple of credits left, and apparently there are some really good deals where you can get an entire series for one credit as opposed to just one bestseller, I would like some recommendations. Is there a good series worth getting? I see somebody mentioned Sherlock Holmes. Any others like that which run many hours and will take up a lot of time?
Also, in response to the person who asked about buying books, I guess I usually buy used paperbacks so I rarely spend more than a couple of dollars for a book. Like I said before, I never felt the rush to get a book right when it came out except as a gift for someone else. I would generally go to yard sales or used book stores and pick them up three for a dollar or similarly priced and then I went to Amazon where used paperbacks were dirt cheap. I do recognize that some people buy books as collectibles or want the most recent book but since I never did this it didn’t make sense to do it on Audible. Getting 60-80 hours and multiple volumes for one credit does make sense, though, especially if it is a classic I might want to listen to multiple times.
I was thinking about audible, but this description puts me off the whole business. I know I listen to a lot more than one book per month. I am seriously more like a book a week. I listen during my commute and on long car trips.
$15 a month is less than most CD audiobooks (not all), but I suspect I’d be stifled by the selection. as it is, I get the audiobooks out of libraries (you can take advantage of library networks to get a huge selection). I also look for sales of audiobooks, pick them up at flea markets, yard sale, and library sales, and I re-listen a lot to the ones I own.
Audible has quite a large selection, including some titles not available elsewhere.
Note that Audible relatively frequently has special sales (e.g. a selection of audiobooks offered at 2 for 1 credit, or $5 each, or something like that), some of which are only available to members; and the member price on some audiobooks is less than the price of a credit. So it’s not as though that monthly credit is the only way you can get books through Audible.
Do you know whether all of Librivox’ content is playable on YouTube? If so that would be great; I’ve given up on the in-house Librivox app because it won’t hold focus if you pause it for more than a few seconds. Listening on YouTube would be away of getting even more value from my premium account.
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