Audible by Amazon

Author
Discussion

benjj

Original Poster:

6,787 posts

170 months

Monday 12th January 2015
quotequote all
Has anyone (else) tried this? It is Amazon's new audiobook service.

I've just come to the end of a free month trial. The premise is good and the tech is superb (I used it on work PC, android handset and wife's iPad) - However...

It is just too expensive in my opinion.

It is £7.99 per month and for that you get 1 'token' which you can redeem against one audiobook. After that you have to buy them.

It's good that the audiobooks are yours to keep but the price too high for solely online.

I had a look online and saw you can return items if you're not satisfied. I did this and managed to get 3 different audiobooks during the trial but that's it.

If the service was more like Spotify and offered unlimited audiobooks (listen only) for a tenner a month I'd probably stay a member. But seeing as not, not.

Liszt

4,330 posts

277 months

Monday 12th January 2015
quotequote all
I think with audio books it's a tough market.

It's not like you'll listen to it many tens of time like an album and some of the unabridged stuff is over 10 hours long.

If they were cheaper I'd definitly buy more

jesta1865

3,450 posts

216 months

Monday 12th January 2015
quotequote all
i love it, i get to listen to books as i walk to work from the tube and home etc, makes a 20 minute walk bearable.

i can see that the 7.99 may be a bit much, but i seem to save them up and quite often they do a bogof or buy 2 get a 3rd free so they are good.

my only gripe is sometimes the voice of the person reading gets to you, i love bill bryson books, but by christ he has a boring voice.

i have changed others because of the person reading it. they never query me sending titles back by the way.

FlossyThePig

4,099 posts

250 months

Saturday 17th January 2015
quotequote all
Living in Suffolk I have access to both ebooks and audio books available to download for free, I'm sure other counties offer a similar service.

http://suffolklibraries.lib.overdrive.com/8F943762...

http://suffolk.oneclickdigital.eu/Home/Whats%20Pop...

The selection may not be as great as a commercial enterprise but there is still plenty to keep you occupied.