I was very disappointed to see this article complain about Audible DRM without mentioning the variety of DRM-Free audiobook providers.
• downpour.com
• libro.fm
• audiobooksnow.com
(The last of these has a handful of DRM'd books, so you need to check the listing first, but the vast majority are DRM-free.)
While none of these retailers have as large a library as Audible, their offerings are more than decent, particularly if you don't mind hopping between sites sometimes. This isn't vodo.net, or even gog.com.
Note that like Audible, Downpour and Libro.fm have subscription plans, which are all-but required if you want books at a reasonable price. Unlike Audible, however, it's easy to game the system by subscribing and quickly unsubscribing.
I know that Audible DRM is currently easy to remove, and that's great, but we should support the true DRM-Free providers where we can, or they might disappear. And if that happens, who knows what Audible will do.
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Honorable mentions:
• audiobookstore.com sells DRM Free audiobooks, but they always seem to cost much more than on other sites, even with a subscription plan. I've also never found a book that was available here but not on one of the cheaper DRM-Free stores.
• Graphicaudio.net offers DRM Free downloads if you don't mind paying a couple dollars extra per title. But these are very much not normal audiobooks.
> Unlike Audible, however, it's easy to game the system by subscribing and quickly unsubscribing.
You can do this on Audible without problems. I have an Audible library of 15 books that I accumulated over a few years through various promotions, never paying more than 33% the normal cost of a subscription.
Can anyone recommend DRM-free book providers that for any one book they can optionally bundle a physical book, ebook, and/or audiobook version in one price that's lower than getting each format separately?
Thank you for this list! I found a great price on Downpour (without subscription) for an audiobook for which I've been hunting forever (Ansary's "Destiny disrupted").
> Seems like Audible DRM isn't a problem for pirates, 'cause I've seen a lot of their audiobooks on trackers.
I mean, is it ever? Outside of exceptional circumstances like Denuvo, and even that's usually temporary.
> Non-tech people doesn't care about DRM in general, they prefer discounts, and here Amazon plays well.
I could make a similar argument about data privacy. Does that mean we shouldn't bring it up?
But separately, isn't it a bit weird for the article to bring up DRM as a "dark side" of the audiobook industry, without mentioning that DRM-Free audiobooks are readily available?
An anecdote from me: Before I discovered audiobooks I rarely read non technical books, especially fictions. I just couldn't find enough time to finish books at a satisfactory pace. What's more, I couldn't enjoy many types of exercises and because of that I just didn't exercise enough. I find the activity of doing those types of exercises by themselves or even with music is too low in information density, that I just became bored after a while.
Now with audiobooks I read many non technical books while I do those types of exercises I couldn't enjoy before. If a book is not great I dont find it a waste of time. The combination of audiobooks and exercising is the right amount of information density for me to enjoy the moment. The result? I exercise much much more now.
Also I started to use the local library for audiobooks. Comparing to the effort of borrowing paper books or device restriction of borrowing ebooks, borrowing audiobooks is just a much better overall experience.
Definitely love using the library for audiobooks. I mainly use apps: Axis 360, Hoopla, and Libby (and a little bit of Overdrive). It's been a godsend for reading for me and saved me a ton.
I also use those apps for ebooks, removing social media from my phone, and try to read a few pages here and there when I would have been scrolling mindlessly before.
I love running with audiobooks. People I talk to are initially thrown off (don't you need high-tempo/"pump" music?) but if you're get into the habit and don't push yourself too hard it's easy to listen to fiction 20-40 minutes at a time while doing cardio. It's positive feedback, too - I look forward to running because I get to listen to my book. And I like my book because (after getting into a routine) running makes me feel good.
Not sure how you exercise to audiobooks, unless maybe its running or something like that. Up-tempo music really helps increase my cadence. I've tried w/ podcasts and audiobooks and am forced to switch back or else just find myself half-halfheartedly working out.
If you lift weights, there's a lot of waiting involved between sets. You can listen to stuff while you're idle, and then hit pause as you're doing your reps.
When you're just starting out you may only need 90s rest, but as you progress to higher loads, that will rise to (say) three minutes, and then even longer the more 'advanced' you get.
I guess for me I mostly halfheart on the audiobook end. Like if I missed a sentence or two I'll just let it go. So I dont listen to serious books. On the other hand some weight training doesn't really require a fast cadence if not training for explosion I assume. Interestingly for me music sometimes can mess up my own exercise tempo.
I exercise mostly indoors these days at home and most of my workouts are more endurance than cardio (long story) like walking at an incline on the treadmill and using the elliptical at high tension or lifting weights. In all three cases, the machines help me/force me to keep a cadence.
When I did run outside, I had a Garmin GPS Watch (before the Apple Watch was a thing) to force me to stay at my desired pace.
That being said. I can’t cycle without music. That is basically my only real cardio.
I find that podcasts or audiobooks can actually help my pacing on longer weekend runs. With music I all too easily get caught up in a good song, let my pace drift faster into unsustainable territory, and wind up paying for it on the back half of the run.
He's highly opinionated (on a variety of topics), but his system is pretty good. Note: it's fairly boring, as it's the same five basic exercises over and over. But it gets results and having strength is handy.
Other than that, being able to do a 5K is also useful:
Walking up mountains - a typical Saturday for me is 2 hour drive, 8 or 9 hour walk then 2 hour drive back so usually about one non-abridged audiobook per week.
NB Only slightly odd side effect is I now associate particular mountains with specific topics....
Cardio: stationary bike, jumping rope, stair climbing.
Body weight: some for abs some for lower back. I learned and picked a few from the youtube channel Athlean X. I personally feel we need those exercises to combat the long hours we sit everyday.
And stretching! It was so boring before audiobooks I never stretch, now I stretch before and after.
Feel free to experiment to find your own optimal routine, since we have different schedules and access to equipments. I guess the idea is with audiobooks experimenting can be fun too. Even cleaning the house is fun now with audiobooks :D
I cycle with audiobooks - 1-2 books/month. It really helps pass the time during long rides. I've tried with running, but being a more intense and high impact exercise it didn't work for me.
Audiobooks just don't work for me, I would continuously zone out.
I'm curious if people listening to them a lot simply have the same thing going but accept it, or if they are able to maintain focus on the spoken words better ?
Another issue I have with them is that I can't quite skim to a paragraph of interest.
Audiobooks of non-fiction work for me because I'm listening in otherwise dead time: when I'm driving there is nothing else to do. The average person [US?] spends 50 minutes a day alone in their car. That if you use that time to listen to a non-fiction book and learn something you are a better person. If you zone out and decide you don't care to rewind to where you zoned out it isn't a loss.
I don't think fiction would work this way, too much of the plot depends on what happened on the last page. However non-fiction if you miss point B but get A, D, and part of C you are still better even if you never go back to learn what B was or fully grok C.
I listen to them while going to sleep. That way I enjoy going to sleep every night. I set a sleep timer to turn off the audio after 30 minutes but usually only make it 10 minutes in. The next night I skim through to where I don't recall hearing and start again. Rinse and repeat, I've listened to perhaps a hundred audiobooks in the last several years, love going to sleep, and get to sleep far quicker too.
Currently this feature in Audible is implemented in a way that makes it unusable for me: I add 10 min timer. Almost falling asleep when the time us up, but not fully, so I would like to continue. So I gently press play on my headset. But then the timer is off, so if I fall asleep it will play for hours. So to combat that, I have to bring up my phone and add a new timer. This takes me out of the almost-falling-asleep, and back to square one.
As a matter of fact, I keep aa set of udio books on my phone specifically as a sleep aid. I find that listening to a steady voice puts me straight to sleep within a few minutes.
They work for me when I walk, clean or drive. I noticed that when I do anything else while I listen, I just zone out and forget where I was and have to start over or go back.
I haven't listened to audiobooks for a long time because I don't drive much. (Don't commute.) I find for podcasts, listening in the car is about the only time they really work for me. Probably because driving requires a level of attention but usually not too much attention.
When I try to listen to podcasts at home my mind usually ends up drifting. And I can't stand having earbuds with music or anything else in my ears when walking. Separates me from my environment too much.
Personally I have a Goldilocks zone. If I'm just lying on the sofa I start thinking about other things, if I'm doing too much I miss what is happening in the book. However things like walking around town or cleaning the house I really enjoy audiobooks or podcasts.
I drive a lot and audiobooks are how I pass time. Usually I can stay focused. When I find myself losing focus and unable to get it back I switch to music. Still, I find it a lot easier to focus on audio than text on paper these days. I've listened to 50-100 audiobooks in the last few years where I have finished reading approximately three paper/kindle books. I like the audiobooks keep reading when I temporarily lose focus. Can always rewind a few minutes and try again if I get lost.
It helps to only listen to books I am interested in, can learn from. I don't listen to fiction in general because it's harder for me to follow when someone else is acting out the characters.
Why is your reaction “I zone out therefore audiobooks aren’t for me” instead of “I zone out, therefore it would be a great idea to practice my listening skills”?
I’ve had huge issues with zoning out, wearing down the skip back button, skipping back a minute every two minutes, relistening to the same part five times. But it’s gotten better and better.
Now I often have blocks of 20 minutes where I don’t need to rewind.
Also keep in mind that some styles of writing (and narration!) are harder to follow than others. It might be the book/narrator that’s the issue and not the medium
This was a huge issue for me at first, but I seem to have naturally gotten better with practice. But I still have to stop listening semi-regularly when I realize my environment has become too distracting and I’m losing focus.
Early on I did more light non-fiction and self-helpy things because I didn’t mind as much if I missed a line or two.
Same. Also podcasts. The whole medium doesn't work for me at all. I'll try to get into some podcast I'm assured is up my alley, make it a couple minutes, then realize I've been zoning out for a solid ten minutes and haven't processed a word they've said.
Talky video programs are sometimes OK. I can pay attention to them, at least, it's just that most aren't very good.
I can do the dedicated-listening thing to music but the point of podcasts is supposed to be that you can listen to them while doing something else—almost none are worth dedicated listening time. I can't manage that. I miss too much to follow WTF they're talking about, so it's just noise, and I have enough of that as it is and don't need more.
[EDIT] I also hate—hate—having the TV on as "background noise" so maybe that has something to do with it.
I listen to audiobooks while taking long walks. If my mind wanders, I use the "skip back" button (in Audible you can customize the amount of time the skip-back is for). I try to make sure I catch everything because the book gets boring if you lose track of what's going on. Sometimes my mind wanders repeatedly on the same sentence and I just can't catch what was said. Then I try to repeat what they're saying to force my brain to process it, and/or take a short break.
There are two other cases where I'll lose track while walking:
When I need to pay attention to something else like crossing the street, or passing other people on the sidewalk. Just use the skip back.
I have something on my mind that I need to process. Turn off the audio and think quietly while I walk. Sometimes it's just not a good time for books, but music is what I need.
I can't just listen to an audiobook while sitting around. I'll want to do something else, right away.
Sometimes I'll also listen to an audiobook while doing mindless chores, but the book needs to be extra interesting to make up for it, otherwise it's just not worth the distraction.
If a book is really interesting (usually something that I think is going to revolutionize my life) then I'll be listening to it every moment I can.
A little off topic but, I usually get the place I was walking, and the feeling of the book wired together in my brain.
It's definitely a different thing, and I listen to different books than I would read. Fiction rarely works for me, as an audiobook. Douglas Adams is a notable exception. His audiobooks were fantastic, and I assume this relates to those books' origin as radio-dramas.
It depends on context though. If I'm driving and listening, my attention is good enough to follow light nonfiction. If I'm washing dishes or commuting, something more conversational like a podcast is better.
Incidentally, I'd be real interested in audiobooks as supplements to books rather than just alternative mediums. Take a book like Sapiens. I like to read a book like that, using my eyes. But.. if each chapter/topic had a conversation between ynh and colleagues, students or somesuch... It makes for a nice supplement. Read the books take on the paleolithic/linguistic revolution.. and then maybe conversationally talk about alternative possibilities or the history of the idea.
Not limited to college course based books (sapiens was "intro to world history," before it was a book). "Classics" could have book club-like companion audiobooks. I'm all in if someone want to make a companion audiobook to George Orwell's essays, for example.
For me, I have to listen to audio books during the right activities. Mindless things that don't take the thinking part of my brain like doing dishes, driving a car, riding a bike, walking. It absolutely can't be background noise or the only thing I'm doing because I'll either zone out or fall asleep.
Driving works for me, though I no longer drive to work so don't listen to podcasts or audiobooks. A colleague suggested playing mindless games on your phone while listening; the minor focus required for the game gives you enough to do without getting distracted.
Secondly yes I am also at risk of zoning out but not enough to stop listening.
For example on the treadmill at the gym I have to make an effort to follow the plot sometimes, and other times it's so exciting I forget how long I've been there.
The other time I listen to audiobooks is when going to sleep. And then I do zone out, and fall asleep, that's the point. But it has happened that a book was coming to a conclusion or just so exciting that I end up staying awake for an extra hour or two just to hear it.
So it's not for everyone, just like reading isn't for everyone either. But oh man am I happy for audiobooks. I'm giving my old paper books away by the bag to make room.
Try listening after you’ve pushed yourself to exhaustion after intense exercise — body won’t want to do anything but lie there — mind can totally focus on story . Also helps if what your listening to is actually good —- try Andy weirs THE MARTIAN
It's a production with actors. Sometimes expensive ones. It's surely along the same continuum that explains why a 90 minute movie or season box set is more expensive than the book it's based on that takes weeks to consume. Wouldn't surprise me that consumers value it higher than "just a book."
Another way to look at it: that's 21 hours of content for $35. Doesn't seem crazy compared to, say, going to the movies or buying a $60 video game that might not even have 10 hours of gameplay.
I used to work at Amazon in the physical audiobook publishing world.
For physical audiobooks, most of the NYC publishers priced their audiobooks based on the number of CD's the book would go on. Longer books required more recording and more CD's in a box and would be priced higher. They sold, but not that well because the relative pricing was high. You could see physical audiobook sales crater once a book moved from hardcover to paperback. I did the data analytics and was able to determine the pricing formulas that audiobook publishers were using.
As Hombre said, it is paying for the voice talent and production costs. also it is a much lower volume market so the fixed costs like that are a more significant hit to the price.
Actual printing of books does not cost a lot. the materials are cheap the processes are very efficient at large volumes. That is one reason why ebooks are not always cheaper than the print versions. the print costs are small.
libro.fm audiobooks drop to $15 per book if you use their credits. It's a subscription system like Audible.
Unlike Audible, it's much easier to subscribe and quickly unsubscribe. So if you want to buy a book: (1) Subscribe for $15 to get one credit (2) Use your credit to buy a book (3) Unsubscribe.
Agreed. I tend to listen to podcasts and still read books. I find the pacing in books to be built around reading them. With the popularity of audio books I wonder how long it will be until we have ‘books’ specifically done and only released for audio. I know some podcasts are close to this, but they are still not as tight as a well edited book.
I would have thought the issue was more that many books have pacing that takes forever when read aloud. (You generally read faster than it takes to read out loud.)
In any case, you may be looking for radio plays. It's sort of a niche these days but it probably takes better advantage of the medium than simply reading fiction does. (I find non-fiction audiobooks to be very hit or miss. You can't have any real dependency on maps, figures, code/equations, etc. and the content has to be simple enough that you can just go through it at a constant linear pace.)
Try cranking up the replay speed. I usually listen at 1.5x - 2x. Every now and then I'll hit a great book with a good narrator and slow down to listen.
A recent favourite was The Calculating Stars written and narrated by Mary Robinette Kowal, a former puppeteer and long-time podcaster. Her performance was enthralling and fast-paced, so I listed at 1.0x.
I do the same, and listen to most audio books or podcasts at at least 1.33x (this four-thirds factor reduces the listening time by a quarter). A contributing element to determining what speed factor is suitable is what I think of as "information density" in the writing style. With content that requires more digestion, such as The Economist (particularly their more technical articles), I do best processing their excellent audio edition at a simple 1.0x.
I usually stick with light subjects that don't require a great deal of concentration. If I get lost I'll just jump back 30 seconds or a minute. I've found that dense books don't work as audiobooks. I need to concentrate too much and reread often.
> Audiobooks just don't work for me, I would continuously zone out.
Try listening with an increased playback speed. Make it slow enough that you can still comprehend the book, but fast enough that it requires constant attention to do so.
But, if I'm walking or driving, it tends to keep my mind more active, alert, and aids my concentration on not only the book, but the walking and driving too.
I have this same issue if I try to listen while stationary. I either zone out or doze off. I listen during long cycling rides and have no problem staying focused.
Since they mention education but only seem to have mostly bad things to say about audiobooks in that context (unless I missed something, I skimmed that part) I would like to add how this has changed dyslexics relationship with education and with books in general.
My brother is dyslexic and before I think he never read a book ever. This year he got a audio book he wanted as a Christmas gift and he was super happy. That the library of Audio books is expanding is a great thing. I do however agree with the article that the prevelent use of closed formats could be very bad in the long run though. I do think audible is a good deal but I don't like that they use closed formats. There are however still libraries and the increase in audio books can luckily be seen in their available stock as well.
What surprises me with respect to dyslexia is how poor accessibility options are in modern operating systems.
If I understood the research correctly, dyslexia researchers get material improvements in reading speed when they increase the amount of space between words and lines. The gist of the explanation given was that dyslexics basically struggle to separate out the word they're trying to focus on from the surrounding wall of text.
Put another way, while this is fine for normal readers:
quick brown fox jumps
over the lazy dog
Changing it to this makes it easier to read by dyslexic readers:
quick brown fox jumps
over the lazy dog
Perhaps OS designers aren't unaware of it (hint hint if you work on an OS); or perhaps the research isn't as conclusive as I recollect. If the former, it seems like a no brainer to throw in an accessibility option to enable this OS-wide.
Has there been any research/discussion about how this would work for non-dyslexics (I know it would be an option, so not an issue; I'm just curious)? I find myself wanting to go from "quick brown" to "lazy dog" in the second one, even reading it slowly, and I'm not really sure why.
I use the build in speech synthesizer on my mac to listen to most long form articles even shorter texts like hn comments. There are the options to configure a keyboard shortcut to read the highlighted text and increase the reading speed.
I've also installed a program to switch languages from the command line.
One problem I have with audible is that because I'm paying around $15/month I feel the need to use my credits on books that cost more than this. So I miss out on shorter books, plays, etc I'd like to read. I have a bunch of books in my wishlist that are around $9 and I won't burn a credit on them.
I guess that's part of their business model... get you to spend money in addition to your subscription.
I've been using Libby to listen to audiobooks from my local library. I often have to wait for anything popular, but otherwise it's been fine. I don't mind having to "return" the audiobooks either--it's a good incentive to actually listen to them!
Stop thinking of it as a 'subscription'. It isn't, it's a purchase model, where they happen to prefer to take regular payments.
You can sign up to Audible, pay the money, spend your credit, then cancel, all within 10 minutes. Then you can do the same thing again, immediately afterwards.
If your credit cost you less than $9, you should buy the title using a credit, not cash.
I'm surprised they've managed to convince so many people to think of it like it's Netflix, where you pay periodically for temporary access to the full library. Audible have never offered rentals, and their model is nothing like the Netflix model at all.
Also, arafalov's points about the 24 month subscription, and the don't-cancel discounts, are great tips.
Why don't you just use moneydollars for those titles as you want to start them and save your credits for the bigger books? That's what I've been doing.
Unless you're buying very cheap audiobooks, you'd be better off upgrading to a heavier 'subscription' and spending the extra credits, rather than paying in cash.
Depending on where you are, this may be freely available to you right now through your local library.
Talk to your local library about whether they're on Overdrive / Libby. If so, you can listen to unlimited audiobooks, ebooks, magazines, and comic books 24/7. It's fantastic. It's free. Yay public libraries.
Yes. Most publishers want 25-40% of the book's cover price.
ACX/Audible pays 40% for exclusive royalties. So your $30 audiobook will get you $12 in royalties. Amazon makes $3 from your subscription or $18 if someone buys it straight up.
Even at a 25% royalty structure you're still looking at $7.50/audiobook which doesn't work well with an all you can listen/netflix style program as 2-3 books puts the store in the red. Some companies will offer 'all you can listen' but will cut you off if you listen too much.
To get it to work publishers would need to agree to a flat fee for unlimited listens for a period of time. Which doesn't seem likely at this point.
Scribd is an Audible competitor. It's all you can eat for $9 /month (I think). I used it for a while, and really liked it.
I dropped my subscription because my podcast list filled all of my audio time, and my physical books filled the rest of my reading time. But if I ever go back to audio books, Scribd is definitely my first choice.
You can buy credits 3 at a time for a discount usually. Also you can suspend your monthly subscription for a few months (and still retain all your books+credits). Finally, you can return titles you don't like up to year after purchase and get your credit back.
If you buy 2-year 24-credit subscription, your per-title cost drops to about that $9. And that means you can wait until 2-for-1 sales and have lots of credits to benefit from.
Also, if you try to unsubscribe, they sometimes offer a much-reduced rate per-book :-)
> Since the 1980s, cognitive psychology has consistently established that recall is indeed better after reading (printed) text instead of listening to it, a conclusion bolstered by a 2010 study (David B Daniel and William Douglas Woody), which found that students did worse on a test if they had listened to a podcast of a scientific article on child cognition rather than reading it.
I wonder if any of these studies allowed the subjects to rewind. I skip back constantly when listening to audiobooks, because I zone out or get distracted. If you were to study my comprehension while taking away that feature, I'm sure I'd score lower than reading with my eyes. Conversely, if you had me read with one of those apps that shows you one word at a time, and didn't let me rewind, I'm sure I would score lower on that than on audio.
My 1-hour commute each way is mostly sitting in slow or stop & go traffic on the same freeway. So 95% of my brain is available for comprehension. And I can always rewind if I get distracted by actual driving.
I can honestly say that audiobooks on my commute have changed my life. For whatever reason I just can't find a comfortable enough spot to read an actual book for more than 30 minutes at a time - and even that feels like a chore. It bothered me for 2 decades that I didn't read enough. Now I get 2 hours a day where I am transported into another headspace, inspired, engaged. I actually look forward to my commute.
The only downside is when I come down off Mt. Everest and show up at work - my motivation to do my job is pretty low. :)
Did y'all know macOS has a built-in text-to-speech system that is pretty decent?
Go to System Preferences > Accessibility > Speech and set a keyboard shortcut, then you can turn any piece of text into an audio book by simply selecting it and pressing the text-to-speech keyboard shortcut. You'll need to set the Speaking Rate pretty high for this to be useful.
It works great for news, blog posts, HN discussions, and amazingly powerful proofreading tool for writers.
The Mac line has had text to speech functionality since the very beginning, even being somewhat showcased at the first reveal of the Macintosh by Steve Jobs. https://youtu.be/2B-XwPjn9YY?t=208
Although, I imagine the quality of the reader has greatly improved since 1984.
> Although, I imagine the quality of the reader has greatly improved since 1984.
Exactly. I've tries a number of text-to-speech options before and found the voicing to be almost unusable, but the Alex voice in macOS (at least since 10.5) is pretty good. It even does the right context-dependent thing for polysemy cases, e.g. "I live in the mountains" vs. "I went to a live concert".
I recently started recording some articles I wrote as audio. For the few I have tested, it made a significant difference. Some readers went out of their way to tell me how much they enjoyed the audio version.
Most people get distracted too quickly to finish reading an article. But with audio, the story becomes the distraction that keeps them listening to the end.
I would also prefer to hear your tone of voice because it will tell me a lot that your writing can't. For example, if you're saying something slightly contentious (as is common in tech nowadays!) I would be able to tell if you're joking, trying to provoke me, or are playing devil's advocate solely by your tone and the framing.. whereas in the written form, it could be hard to tell.
On my blog, I auto-generate a narrated version of each article using Amazon Polly. It doesn't sound nearly as good as listening to a person talk (the computerized voice is of about the same quality as Siri or Alexa) but I think its a good middle ground between doing nothing and the investment of time and equipment needed to record and edit my own narrations.
It seems that some neural pathways are way shorter over audio ( i guess because we have perfect hearing from birth , unlike vision ), so that the "effort" to read, comprehend and store !text! information is much less.
I guess that's the reason we still have classes in schools. Orally teaching is very very old.
Readit News
• downpour.com
• libro.fm
• audiobooksnow.com
(The last of these has a handful of DRM'd books, so you need to check the listing first, but the vast majority are DRM-free.)
While none of these retailers have as large a library as Audible, their offerings are more than decent, particularly if you don't mind hopping between sites sometimes. This isn't vodo.net, or even gog.com.
Note that like Audible, Downpour and Libro.fm have subscription plans, which are all-but required if you want books at a reasonable price. Unlike Audible, however, it's easy to game the system by subscribing and quickly unsubscribing.
I know that Audible DRM is currently easy to remove, and that's great, but we should support the true DRM-Free providers where we can, or they might disappear. And if that happens, who knows what Audible will do.
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Honorable mentions:
• audiobookstore.com sells DRM Free audiobooks, but they always seem to cost much more than on other sites, even with a subscription plan. I've also never found a book that was available here but not on one of the cheaper DRM-Free stores.
• Graphicaudio.net offers DRM Free downloads if you don't mind paying a couple dollars extra per title. But these are very much not normal audiobooks.
You can do this on Audible without problems. I have an Audible library of 15 books that I accumulated over a few years through various promotions, never paying more than 33% the normal cost of a subscription.
• The cancellation process requires many more clicks. If your process is to subscribe → buy → cancel each time, this gets very annoying.
• You can't buy additional credits without outright changing your overall subscription plan.
• If you cancel your plan, you immediately forfeit any unused credits.
Non-tech people doesn't care about DRM in general, they prefer discounts, and here Amazon plays well.
I mean, is it ever? Outside of exceptional circumstances like Denuvo, and even that's usually temporary.
> Non-tech people doesn't care about DRM in general, they prefer discounts, and here Amazon plays well.
I could make a similar argument about data privacy. Does that mean we shouldn't bring it up?
But separately, isn't it a bit weird for the article to bring up DRM as a "dark side" of the audiobook industry, without mentioning that DRM-Free audiobooks are readily available?
Now with audiobooks I read many non technical books while I do those types of exercises I couldn't enjoy before. If a book is not great I dont find it a waste of time. The combination of audiobooks and exercising is the right amount of information density for me to enjoy the moment. The result? I exercise much much more now.
Also I started to use the local library for audiobooks. Comparing to the effort of borrowing paper books or device restriction of borrowing ebooks, borrowing audiobooks is just a much better overall experience.
I also use those apps for ebooks, removing social media from my phone, and try to read a few pages here and there when I would have been scrolling mindlessly before.
If you lift weights, there's a lot of waiting involved between sets. You can listen to stuff while you're idle, and then hit pause as you're doing your reps.
When you're just starting out you may only need 90s rest, but as you progress to higher loads, that will rise to (say) three minutes, and then even longer the more 'advanced' you get.
When I did run outside, I had a Garmin GPS Watch (before the Apple Watch was a thing) to force me to stay at my desired pace.
That being said. I can’t cycle without music. That is basically my only real cardio.
There's a lot of waiting between sets as you get to higher numbers. See the book Starting Strength by Rippetoe, or /r/fitness.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Rippetoe
He's highly opinionated (on a variety of topics), but his system is pretty good. Note: it's fairly boring, as it's the same five basic exercises over and over. But it gets results and having strength is handy.
Other than that, being able to do a 5K is also useful:
* https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-5k-not-the-marathon...
Humans really don't need that much activity to stay healthy: at some point it's diminishing returns.
NB Only slightly odd side effect is I now associate particular mountains with specific topics....
Cardio: stationary bike, jumping rope, stair climbing. Body weight: some for abs some for lower back. I learned and picked a few from the youtube channel Athlean X. I personally feel we need those exercises to combat the long hours we sit everyday. And stretching! It was so boring before audiobooks I never stretch, now I stretch before and after.
Feel free to experiment to find your own optimal routine, since we have different schedules and access to equipments. I guess the idea is with audiobooks experimenting can be fun too. Even cleaning the house is fun now with audiobooks :D
Another issue I have with them is that I can't quite skim to a paragraph of interest.
I don't think fiction would work this way, too much of the plot depends on what happened on the last page. However non-fiction if you miss point B but get A, D, and part of C you are still better even if you never go back to learn what B was or fully grok C.
When I try to listen to podcasts at home my mind usually ends up drifting. And I can't stand having earbuds with music or anything else in my ears when walking. Separates me from my environment too much.
It helps to only listen to books I am interested in, can learn from. I don't listen to fiction in general because it's harder for me to follow when someone else is acting out the characters.
I’ve had huge issues with zoning out, wearing down the skip back button, skipping back a minute every two minutes, relistening to the same part five times. But it’s gotten better and better.
Now I often have blocks of 20 minutes where I don’t need to rewind.
Also keep in mind that some styles of writing (and narration!) are harder to follow than others. It might be the book/narrator that’s the issue and not the medium
Early on I did more light non-fiction and self-helpy things because I didn’t mind as much if I missed a line or two.
Talky video programs are sometimes OK. I can pay attention to them, at least, it's just that most aren't very good.
I can do the dedicated-listening thing to music but the point of podcasts is supposed to be that you can listen to them while doing something else—almost none are worth dedicated listening time. I can't manage that. I miss too much to follow WTF they're talking about, so it's just noise, and I have enough of that as it is and don't need more.
[EDIT] I also hate—hate—having the TV on as "background noise" so maybe that has something to do with it.
There are two other cases where I'll lose track while walking:
When I need to pay attention to something else like crossing the street, or passing other people on the sidewalk. Just use the skip back.
I have something on my mind that I need to process. Turn off the audio and think quietly while I walk. Sometimes it's just not a good time for books, but music is what I need.
I can't just listen to an audiobook while sitting around. I'll want to do something else, right away.
Sometimes I'll also listen to an audiobook while doing mindless chores, but the book needs to be extra interesting to make up for it, otherwise it's just not worth the distraction.
If a book is really interesting (usually something that I think is going to revolutionize my life) then I'll be listening to it every moment I can.
A little off topic but, I usually get the place I was walking, and the feeling of the book wired together in my brain.
It depends on context though. If I'm driving and listening, my attention is good enough to follow light nonfiction. If I'm washing dishes or commuting, something more conversational like a podcast is better.
Incidentally, I'd be real interested in audiobooks as supplements to books rather than just alternative mediums. Take a book like Sapiens. I like to read a book like that, using my eyes. But.. if each chapter/topic had a conversation between ynh and colleagues, students or somesuch... It makes for a nice supplement. Read the books take on the paleolithic/linguistic revolution.. and then maybe conversationally talk about alternative possibilities or the history of the idea.
Not limited to college course based books (sapiens was "intro to world history," before it was a book). "Classics" could have book club-like companion audiobooks. I'm all in if someone want to make a companion audiobook to George Orwell's essays, for example.
Secondly yes I am also at risk of zoning out but not enough to stop listening.
For example on the treadmill at the gym I have to make an effort to follow the plot sometimes, and other times it's so exciting I forget how long I've been there.
The other time I listen to audiobooks is when going to sleep. And then I do zone out, and fall asleep, that's the point. But it has happened that a book was coming to a conclusion or just so exciting that I end up staying awake for an extra hour or two just to hear it.
So it's not for everyone, just like reading isn't for everyone either. But oh man am I happy for audiobooks. I'm giving my old paper books away by the bag to make room.
Also, why are audiobooks 5 times more expensive than their dead-tree version?
https://www.amazon.com/Leviathan-Wakes-James-S-Corey/dp/0316...
https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9781478998938-leviathan-wakes
That's crazy.
Another way to look at it: that's 21 hours of content for $35. Doesn't seem crazy compared to, say, going to the movies or buying a $60 video game that might not even have 10 hours of gameplay.
For physical audiobooks, most of the NYC publishers priced their audiobooks based on the number of CD's the book would go on. Longer books required more recording and more CD's in a box and would be priced higher. They sold, but not that well because the relative pricing was high. You could see physical audiobook sales crater once a book moved from hardcover to paperback. I did the data analytics and was able to determine the pricing formulas that audiobook publishers were using.
Actual printing of books does not cost a lot. the materials are cheap the processes are very efficient at large volumes. That is one reason why ebooks are not always cheaper than the print versions. the print costs are small.
Unlike Audible, it's much easier to subscribe and quickly unsubscribe. So if you want to buy a book: (1) Subscribe for $15 to get one credit (2) Use your credit to buy a book (3) Unsubscribe.
BTW, libro.fm is DRM Free.
In any case, you may be looking for radio plays. It's sort of a niche these days but it probably takes better advantage of the medium than simply reading fiction does. (I find non-fiction audiobooks to be very hit or miss. You can't have any real dependency on maps, figures, code/equations, etc. and the content has to be simple enough that you can just go through it at a constant linear pace.)
A recent favourite was The Calculating Stars written and narrated by Mary Robinette Kowal, a former puppeteer and long-time podcaster. Her performance was enthralling and fast-paced, so I listed at 1.0x.
Try listening with an increased playback speed. Make it slow enough that you can still comprehend the book, but fast enough that it requires constant attention to do so.
But, if I'm walking or driving, it tends to keep my mind more active, alert, and aids my concentration on not only the book, but the walking and driving too.
If I understood the research correctly, dyslexia researchers get material improvements in reading speed when they increase the amount of space between words and lines. The gist of the explanation given was that dyslexics basically struggle to separate out the word they're trying to focus on from the surrounding wall of text.
Put another way, while this is fine for normal readers:
Changing it to this makes it easier to read by dyslexic readers: Perhaps OS designers aren't unaware of it (hint hint if you work on an OS); or perhaps the research isn't as conclusive as I recollect. If the former, it seems like a no brainer to throw in an accessibility option to enable this OS-wide.On the other hand, it's much easier to rip an Audio book, than remove DRM from an ebook.
I guess that's part of their business model... get you to spend money in addition to your subscription.
You can sign up to Audible, pay the money, spend your credit, then cancel, all within 10 minutes. Then you can do the same thing again, immediately afterwards.
If your credit cost you less than $9, you should buy the title using a credit, not cash.
I'm surprised they've managed to convince so many people to think of it like it's Netflix, where you pay periodically for temporary access to the full library. Audible have never offered rentals, and their model is nothing like the Netflix model at all.
Also, arafalov's points about the 24 month subscription, and the don't-cancel discounts, are great tips.
Talk to your local library about whether they're on Overdrive / Libby. If so, you can listen to unlimited audiobooks, ebooks, magazines, and comic books 24/7. It's fantastic. It's free. Yay public libraries.
ACX/Audible pays 40% for exclusive royalties. So your $30 audiobook will get you $12 in royalties. Amazon makes $3 from your subscription or $18 if someone buys it straight up.
Even at a 25% royalty structure you're still looking at $7.50/audiobook which doesn't work well with an all you can listen/netflix style program as 2-3 books puts the store in the red. Some companies will offer 'all you can listen' but will cut you off if you listen too much.
To get it to work publishers would need to agree to a flat fee for unlimited listens for a period of time. Which doesn't seem likely at this point.
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I dropped my subscription because my podcast list filled all of my audio time, and my physical books filled the rest of my reading time. But if I ever go back to audio books, Scribd is definitely my first choice.
Also, if you try to unsubscribe, they sometimes offer a much-reduced rate per-book :-)
I wonder if any of these studies allowed the subjects to rewind. I skip back constantly when listening to audiobooks, because I zone out or get distracted. If you were to study my comprehension while taking away that feature, I'm sure I'd score lower than reading with my eyes. Conversely, if you had me read with one of those apps that shows you one word at a time, and didn't let me rewind, I'm sure I would score lower on that than on audio.
My 1-hour commute each way is mostly sitting in slow or stop & go traffic on the same freeway. So 95% of my brain is available for comprehension. And I can always rewind if I get distracted by actual driving.
I can honestly say that audiobooks on my commute have changed my life. For whatever reason I just can't find a comfortable enough spot to read an actual book for more than 30 minutes at a time - and even that feels like a chore. It bothered me for 2 decades that I didn't read enough. Now I get 2 hours a day where I am transported into another headspace, inspired, engaged. I actually look forward to my commute.
The only downside is when I come down off Mt. Everest and show up at work - my motivation to do my job is pretty low. :)
Go to System Preferences > Accessibility > Speech and set a keyboard shortcut, then you can turn any piece of text into an audio book by simply selecting it and pressing the text-to-speech keyboard shortcut. You'll need to set the Speaking Rate pretty high for this to be useful.
It works great for news, blog posts, HN discussions, and amazingly powerful proofreading tool for writers.
More info with screenshots here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mApa60zJA8rgEm6T6GF0yIem...
Although, I imagine the quality of the reader has greatly improved since 1984.
Exactly. I've tries a number of text-to-speech options before and found the voicing to be almost unusable, but the Alex voice in macOS (at least since 10.5) is pretty good. It even does the right context-dependent thing for polysemy cases, e.g. "I live in the mountains" vs. "I went to a live concert".
It's about what you'd expect it to sound like... almost unbearable. But maybe the updated Siri voices are better, I haven't tried it for a few years.
When I look in `/System/Library/Speech/Voices` and run `du -sh *` I see Alex.SpeechVoice is 877MB so godda be something wav-like in there.
Most people get distracted too quickly to finish reading an article. But with audio, the story becomes the distraction that keeps them listening to the end.
It seems that some neural pathways are way shorter over audio ( i guess because we have perfect hearing from birth , unlike vision ), so that the "effort" to read, comprehend and store !text! information is much less.
I guess that's the reason we still have classes in schools. Orally teaching is very very old.