Sign up for a free trial now: Audible Premium Plus Membership, $0/month for 30 days.
How Does Audible Work?
Once you’re in the app, you can browse books in each genre via the “discover” tab. If you see a book you’d like to read later, add the title to your “wishlist.” Each book includes a summary, reviews, information about the narrator, and a sample for you to listen to. Once you select which book you’d like to read, your credit will be applied and the book is moved into your library, which can be organized by genre, author, or collection. Audiobooks are categorized by chapter like a traditional book, and the app keeps track of where you are so you can pick back up at any time. Audible is extremely immersive: You can see how long each chapter is (time-wise) and select the audio speed (how fast the narrator talks) for a more customized experience. If you want to listen before you go to bed, but don’t want to risk falling asleep and missing the whole story, you have the option to set a sleep timer. There’s also a bookmark icon that lets you save certain clips from the story, such as a favorite quote or an important plot point that you may want to return to later. I use bookmarks for mysteries because if I read something that seems like a clue, I’ll save it and see if I was right once the plot twists are revealed. (Humble brag: I usually am!) Once you finish a book, it will move to the “finished” section of your library where you have the option to write a review. Then, you’re ready for your next read (or listen)! Sign up now: Audible Premium Plus Membership, $15/month after a 30-day free trial; amazon.com. My overall rating for Audible: 9.2 out of 10 Pros
Better for the environment than physical books and e-readersMonth-long free trial Largest inventory of audiobooks and podcasts onlineUsers can customize their story experience with elements like audio speedAccessible story experience for users with impairments and learning disorders, such as blindness and dyslexiaYou own each audiobook you purchase with the Premium Plus membership, so even if you cancel your membership, the books stay on your app
Cons
Unused credits expire one year after the issue dateIf you gravitate toward one genre, you might run out of new books quicker than if you switch up genres
Audible Plans
There are two main Audible plans you can choose from: Audible Plus and Audible Premium Plus. Audible Plus is the platform’s basic monthly membership, which gives you access to unlimited streaming and listening from the Plus catalog (over 11,000 titles) for a set price (similar to Netflix). Audible Premium Plus is the most popular plan because in addition to everything included in the Plus catalog, this membership gives you one monthly credit that can be used to purchase a book from Audible’s premium selections library (which includes best-sellers). Any premium books you purchase stay in your personal library, so even if you cancel your membership down the road, you get to keep the audiobooks you bought. For even more selections, you can opt for a two-credit monthly plan, an annual plan with immediate access to 12 credits, or an annual plan with immediate access to 24 credits (with set pricing for each). Sign up now: Audible Premium Plus Membership, $15/month after a 30-day free trial; amazon.com.
Audible Cost
The Audible Plus plan costs $8 per month (you can easily sign up for this option at amazon.com), and it gives you access to all the titles in Audible’s Plus catalog. These can be streamed an unlimited number of times, but they’re not owned by the user, so if you cancel your membership, you will no longer have access to the books. There are more than 11,000 books in this inventory, but they’re not all best-sellers. The standard Audible Premium Plus plan costs $15 per month for one credit (the equivalent of one premium audiobook), plus the free inventory of the Plus catalog. As previously mentioned, any book purchased with a credit belongs to you, so you can download the book and keep it even if you cancel your Audible membership. For a two-credit Premium Plus membership, you’ll pay $23 per month. For readers who want instant access to more premium titles, consider a Premium Plus annual plan: $150 per year for immediate access to 12 credits or $230 per year for immediate access to 24 credits. If you want to purchase more credits, Audible releases special offers on occasion that allow you to buy three extra credits. Should you run out of credits and still want to purchase books, you can do so with a credit card, and will receive 30 percent off as a member discount. You can also gift Audible subscriptions. Audible Plus and Audible Premium Plus memberships each come with a 30-day free trial and can be canceled at any time.
Audible Books
The Audible Plus catalog contains more than 11,000 titles with new books being added weekly. Featuring classics like George Orwell’s 1984 and new discoveries like A Perfect Stranger by Shalini Boland, you’ll find hours of entertainment in this captivating library. Then there are the exclusive selections included in the Premium Plus membership—think best-sellers like John Grisham’s The Judge’s List (I recommend anything by Grisham) and Jodi Picoult’s Wish You Were Here. I personally would love to listen to Will Smith narrate his new memoir Will. Audible’s inventory also includes a ton of popular podcasts like Crime Junkie from Ashley Flowers and We Can Do Hard Things from Glennon Doyle. Plus, you’ll find Audible Originals, which are short stories on various topics. Can’t sleep? Check out Audible’s collection of sleep audio, including meditations, ASMR, bedtime stories, landscape sounds (like ocean waves), and so much more. Like with audiobooks, you can set a sleep timer so your app will stop the audio after a set amount of time, saving your battery.
Audible’s Impact on Sustainability
As mentioned above, audiobooks have a significantly smaller carbon footprint than physical books and e-readers. While you might think e-readers have less of an impact on the environment than physical books, the energy needed to make and then charge these devices is equivalent to the production of 100 physical books. Meanwhile, audiobooks don’t require any production or shipping, so apart from data storage, they don’t use much energy. Therefore, services like Audible are your best bet for eco-friendly reading, but there are also other ways to support climate initiatives as a reader. You can donate physical books to the library or share them with a friend when you’re finished. If you do have an e-reader, you should aim to read more than 100 books on it to account for the energy used to produce it.
Audible Customer Service and Reviews
When talking about Audible as a whole, one reviewer wrote, “I initially signed up for Audible because of a one-month-free promotion, assuming that I would cancel after the month was over. But here I am, four months later and loving it. Whenever I’m waiting in line somewhere, walking to a destination, or have time to kill, I just take out my phone and earbuds and start listening, which makes the time pass by more quickly.” Another satisfied user said, “I thought the app was well done; the selection was fantastic… All in all, I would recommend this service to anyone who enjoys books on tape or nowadays listening to books on any device. They have lots of ‘read by the author or famous people’ type books.” Price was also an issue for some: “I would be an enthusiastic booster for Audible if it ran on the newer model like Netflix or Spotify, and allowed users access to ALL of its content for a subscription fee rather than a monumentally high subscription fee for access to a single audio book,” one critic noted. As for its accessibility, a visually impaired reviewer said, “I love Audible because I have glaucoma and I’m half blind, and I can basically hear the stories I’ve always wanted to hear. It’s like being read a bedtime story… my anxiety has calm[ed] down.” Sign up now for a free trial ofAudible Premium Plus at amazon.com.
Audible: My Take
I’ve tried several audio services, including Apple Books and Spotify, and where Audible soars over its competitors is its inventory of both books and other audio experiences like podcasts and short stories. The volume of stories is massive, and when you have the Audible Premium Plus membership, you also have access to more books from an extended library of best-sellers and new releases. This service is ideal for those who love stories but don’t have time to read them. Audible allows you to multitask while exploring a vast digital library. Absorb a nonfiction memoir while you’re exercising or dive into a historical fiction novel while you’re commuting to work. It should be noted that the service caters to readers who are interested in a lot of different genres, so if you’re set on one type, you might run out of new options sooner than expected. Overall, I think Audible is a great option for book lovers (and podcast listeners) because it saves you so much time. If you’ve been spending hundreds of dollars on physical books, Audible is also cost effective because of the free audiobooks included in the membership.
