Around the world,  TDM,  Tips,  Travel Light

Amazon Audible: My Tips for Paying Less

I watched the very bad movie “Le Beau Monde” with Ana Girardot as the lead actress. The script includes a little of DIY, sewing, embroidery etc. that’s why I was able to watch it all the way through. The heroine did a lot of manual things. There is a scene where she was listening to audio books and the hero asked her why she was doing it, she answered that it allowed her to concentrate on her manual activities while “reading” a book. Since I do a lot of DIY, I thought it was a good idea.

That’s when I started listening to books on Audible.

This post is NOT sponsored

Audible, what is it?

Audible allows you to listen to books in full or shortened versions, in audio, in the language of your choice.
Like a podcast, you can change the reading speed.

Audible is a service that belongs to Amazon and works on a subscription basis.

How do I buy Audible books?

On Amazon, when a book is available in Audible format, you can see it very well.
For example this one costs 39,95€ without Audible subscription, or included in the Audible subscription.

But the easiest way is to go directly to the Audible page here.
You can subscribe to the offer and download the Audible apps for iPhone, iPad or Windows, it’s easier to search and listen to the excerpts
.

How much does it cost?

If you already have Amazon Prime, the first two books are free.
If you don’t have Amazon Prime yet, only the first book is free.

Then it costs €9.95/month and you can cancel at any time

My tips for paying less

After taking advantage of your free books, Audible will start charging you 30 days later.
Try to cancel before the 30 days.

Audible will offer you 3 choices, so that you can stay:

  • or another free audiobook: if you accept this option, the subscription starts right away and you start paying 9,95€ but you have 1 credit (paid with the subscription) and 1 free credit = 2 books for 9,95€
  • either a half-price subscription for 3 months: if you accept this option, the subscription starts immediately for €4.95 and you get a credit
  • the third choice is to take a break and resume whenever you like

So with Audible’s different offers, pretending to cancel twice, I was able to download 5 audiobooks for a total of 14.9€, isn’t that expensive?

Of course, when you have already taken advantage of all the offers below, you can’t cancel every month and be offered free credits all the time

Why Choose Audio Books

  • When your hands are gripped or when your eyes are tired.
    1. I listen to audio books when I make paper flowers. The gestures are quite repetitive so I don’t need to think a lot. My eyes and hands focus on the flowers while my brain focuses on the content of the book. It allows me to optimize my time.
    2. I also listen to the books during transportation. I often get motion sickness if I read something.
  • Audio books are cheaper than paper or Kindle books. Even books that take 28 hours to read (in audio) cost 9,95€, I find it’s super profitable that for this price, someone is killing his eyes reading 1000 pages for me, doing all the voices of the characters in addition 😀
  • Audio books are excellent for children too. During the confinement, Audible provided many free, high quality audio books. You can still access them here
  • When the books are too long to read. Personally I fall asleep in front of some books while the audio version doesn’t fall asleep at all.
  • To improve listening comprehension in foreign languages, that’s great. Especially if you also have the paper book in front of you, you can try to understand the audio version (the reading speed is adjustable) and if you don’t understand something, refer to the paper version.

The plusses

I found the service quite flexible:

  • Each month, you get a credit which allows you to buy an audio book.
  • If there is a month where you don’t buy a book, your credit for that month remains available on your account, you can use it whenever you want.
  • Even after cancellation, the books you bought remain available on your account, you can listen to them as many times as you want.
  • If you buy a book and you don’t like it, as long as you haven’t listened to the whole book, you can return it within 2 weeks. Your credit will be returned to you so that you can buy another book. So if you make a mistake, it is still possible to rectify the mistake
  • The playback speed is adjustable, between 0.5x and 3.5x!
  • Audio books are downloaded offline via the following applications
  • You can activate the “driving” mode which displays buttons in bulk
  • You can add bookmarks and notes, like on Kindle
  • If a book is popular, they may offer several versions with several voices. You can listen to the excerpts to choose the version and voice that suits you best

I put below some screenshots of the app

The –

  • You cannot buy several credits at once. It’s necessarily one credit per month, otherwise you have to pay the full price (it varies according to the book, but it’s generally higher than 9.95€, the subscription price)
  • There are some books that exist only in abridged versions. You can’t see it right away, you have to look at the “product details” section

Here you go, I hope you enjoyed this little review. To test Audible and receive your first free audiobook, go here.

Prime Members ? Take advantage of the exceptional Prime Day offer! The Audible subscription only costs 4.95€!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *