Best deals for heavy audiobook listeners

gfplux

lyacanwait said:

Speaking from my own experience, Audible membership confused me a lot at the first beginning. Remember when I first get to know about Audible, I even thought that Audible was just like those music streaming services and you can get access to all the audiobooks on Audible once you sign up for Audible.

Then I did some research before I get on board. I realized that I can only get 3 audiobooks each month with the membership: one credit to buy whatever you like and 2 free Audible Originals. However, compared to the audiobook price on iTunes or Google Play, $14.95 for 3 audiobooks a month still sounds attractive to me.

I didn't notice that there are additional conditions until I took the free trial. For example, the 2 free Audible Originals have to choose from the 6 rotating selection each month. The downside here is that you may not have any interest in all the 6 audiobooks and these so-called 2 free audiobooks can mean nothing to you. The credit system is more reasonable because credit is valid for any audiobook on Audible regardless of its price or length. Audible allows you to save the credit so the credit won't reset each month.

Here's more about how does Audible membership works.

Thank you for your analysis, however all your comments are for an Audible account in the USA.
It is clear that Audible have different deals for different markets.
I live in Luxembourg and have Amazon accounts with the UK and Germany.
I chose for my Christmas present in December 2018 to get my Audible contract from the UK as I assumed the default selection would be in English, which it is.

gfplux

extrafisher said:

Topcashback currently have 3 months at £3.99 pm + £10 cashback and not just for first time customers.

Does anyone have any recomendations for big books or collections, stephen fry sherlock holmes looks interesting and is 70 hours

Have a look at The Far Pavilions by M M Kaye. An epic book but very very long the Audible version is 48 hours long.
far too long for me as I just can not give that much time to one book (however good) as I have many current podcasts to keep up with.

extrafisher

gfplux said:

extrafisher said:

Topcashback currently have 3 months at £3.99 pm + £10 cashback and not just for first time customers.

Does anyone have any recomendations for big books or collections, stephen fry sherlock holmes looks interesting and is 70 hours

Have a look at The Far Pavilions by M M Kaye. An epic book but very very long the Audible version is 48 hours long.
far too long for me as I just can not give that much time to one book (however good) as I have many current podcasts to keep up with.

Thanks but i used my credits, think i prefer library for time being as im not that fussy about what to read.
If you have alexa or fire tablet you get 3 free audiobooks a month, how not to be a boy is good i listened from library, im listening to hg wells collection read by Hugh Bonneville & David Tennant. Only downside is you need to finish them by end of each month.
https://www.audible.co.uk/ep/alexa-free-audiobook?source_code=M2M30DFT1Bk12209261801YF&&ipRedirectOverride=true

gfplux

So to today I will open my listening habits to the world.
to recap, having exhausted the availability of a UK library that a relative is a member of, my chosen Christmas present in December 2018 was a 12 months (12 credit) subscription to Audible UK cost £69.99.
This appears to give the subscriber an opportunity to purchase 12 audio books at an average cost of £5.83 a book. However as a subscriber you can subscribe to receive their daily deal by email with a cost of £1.99 or £2.99 for that day’s audio book. In addition there are various sale offers of where a collection of books are offered at a sale price, perhaps £1.99/£2.99/£3.00 or 2 Audio books for one credit.

i have looked at my records for 2019 and have discovered the following 
I bought a total of 51 books, returned 4 and my average cost per audio book came out at £2.88. Of the net 47 audio books I still have 6 “in stock” yet to be listened.
listening to audio books is an important hobby for me so I am happy and able to support this cost.
It would be interesting to hear if others have similar or very different experiences.

koru

gfplux said:

I bought a total of 51 books, returned 4 and my average cost per audio book came out at £2.88. ...
It would be interesting to hear if others have similar or very different experiences.

Interesting that the average price worked out that low, though I'm not surprised.
I assume that the 51 books does not include Audible Originals?
Personally, I'm still working though the books at my library's digital service. They seem to keep adding good ones, so my list of books to be read keeps getting longer. I'm not sure I'll ever run out and end up having to pay for any. 

gfplux

koru said:

gfplux said:

I bought a total of 51 books, returned 4 and my average cost per audio book came out at £2.88. ...
It would be interesting to hear if others have similar or very different experiences.

Interesting that the average price worked out that low, though I'm not surprised.
I assume that the 51 books does not include Audible Originals?
Personally, I'm still working though the books at my library's digital service. They seem to keep adding good ones, so my list of books to be read keeps getting longer. I'm not sure I'll ever run out and end up having to pay for any. 

A pleasantly low average price but the £1.99 daily deals and 241 credit have a nice effect.
lucky you as you appear to have a local library that believes in audiobooks and not just electronic readers. I have access to leicester library where they appear to add only one or two audiobooks a year.

koru

A few more comments for anyone considering their local library for audiobooks:

My library (Herts) seems to have stepped up the number of audiobooks it adds to the catalogue. Perhaps they are just diverting their budget for physical books, since the physical libraries have been closed most of this year.

A potential solution, if they don't have the books you want to read, is to make requests. My library told me they were happy to take requests, so I sent them a list of about 100 books, on the assumption they might get 2 or 3. A week later, about 30 of them were added to the audiobook availability.

If your local library does not do audiobooks, you might want to investigate US libraries that allow non-residents to join, for an annual fee. Some have fees that are so low that they are still a good deal. eg, Fairfax and Orange County.

gfplux

My local library in Luxembourg added audiobook downloads a few months ago. They also have been very responsive to requests.

koru

Xigxag is an interesting new option. New to me, that is, as they seem to have launched in 2019.

A British company, with an innovative business model. Pricing starts at £7.99, which is competitive with the credit-a-month package with Audible, but there's no subscription so you just buy when you want a book. The innovation is that the price drops depending on how many you buy in a year. So, once you have bought 20, the price is £3.99. That's close to the cheapest price at Audible, if you buy 24 credits in one go then buy extra bundles of 3 credits. If you use your credit in a 2 for 1, this would still be cheaper than Xigxag.

The catalogue seems decent. On a random check in the search box for the first 10 names I thought of, they have Richard Osman, Brandon Sanderson, Robert Galbraith, Stephen King, Harlan Coben, Lee Child, Terry Pratchett, Barbara Kingsolver. They don't have Harry Potter, Kite Runner.
https://xigxag.co.uk/pricing/

They also have an interesting feature with some books where you get the ebook included and can switch between them. Similar to Audible/Kindle, except you don't pay extra for the second format.

I haven't tried them, as I mainly use the library and I've got about 50 books from other sources that I haven't yet read. But if you want to own the book they seem like a real alternative to Audible.

koru

For completeness, a couple of other options, but neither seems attractive:

Spotify now sells audiobooks. Not included in your music subscription; you buy them separately. On a quick skim of their catalogue, you'd be mad to buy from them, as prices seem to be £20-30. As no book on Audible costs more than £7.99 (by becoming a member, using your first credit, then ending your membership), this is laughably uncompetitive.

Speechify is similar. Same problem as Spotify. Priced in US dollars, so I'm not sure you can even buy from the UK, but why would you want to?