Curses! Audible is not what I want!

by Jason Preston on February 5, 2009

All this time I thought that I could sign up for audible.com and it would act like Zune or Rhapsody, and let me download and play as many audiobooks as I’d like – so long as I pay my monthly fee.

But it turns out that my monthly fee only gets me one audiobook per month. It’s cheaper than buying most audiobooks individually, yes, but I’d rather just keep buying them as-needed from iTunes instead of doing this stupid one-book credit-system. Poo on audible.

  • http://www.oak-tree.us/blog Rob Oakes

    I thought I should give Audible a plug. I first started using the service in 2002. At the time, it was the only way to get audio content onto a handheld. I thought I would try out the service, collect the five free audiobooks they were giving away and then run. Suffice it to say, I was pleasantly surprised. While looking through their catalogue, I found about 10 books I was interested in. I therefore decided to stay until I had purchased all ten. After all, it was substantially cheaper than buying the books on tape at the time.

    After I finished those 10, I found others I liked and just decided to stick around for the long haul. I’m very glad that I did. What I found is that while I don’t quite complete the two books a month that my plan gets for me (on average), having the Audible.com account has encouraged me to “purchase” and experience more books on a wider variety of topics than I would normally choose to peruse. I have the credits, I have to use them (my account doesn’t carry credits over), so I do. While not every experiment has quite matched the hype (Neal Stephenson is a sanctimonious blowhard), I’m still a better read person because of Audible. And even better, it’s much cheaper than buying the books one at a time through iTunes.