Audiobook Platforms that aren’t Audible…

Audiobooks are great.

In the car, at the gym, on the subway, in the shower.

There are not many bad places to listen to a good book.

Some add some musical flair. Some add little sound effects. Some have narrators with booming voices. Some have narrators with soft, enchanting voices.

However you like your audiobooks, you probably have heard of Audible.

Amazon’s audiobook behemoth has anywhere from a 60% to 80% market share for audiobooks worldwide. (Although that number is dramatically higher in North America.) It’s huge. It’s the proverbial elephant in the shop or something. I forget what the metaphor is, but it’s huge.

And to be honest… It’s okay.

The one credit a month is nice with a subscription. It blends nicely with Amazon. But the interface is clunky at times. The profit sharing with authors could be better. Its market tactics are… not great to say the least.

And not everyone wants to use it.

So let’s look at some great alternatives.

*Small caveat. There are a lot of audiobook services out there. I’m only putting the ones I’ve used on this list.

Spotify

Spotify recently rolled out its audiobook program for premium members. 15 hours a month is now included for paying members on the platform. (But only the paying member if it’s a family or duo plan. As I learned thanks to my family complaining about it to me. Even though they get free Spotify.)

The program features over 200,000 titles across a huge swath of genres and even though it didn’t have a few specific books I was looking for, it’s hard to complain since it was a feature thrown into a service I was already paying for. You can download them, listen to them offline and save them to your device. You don’t own any of the books, and can only listen to them if you stay inside of the app.

That being said, if you aren’t already paying for Spotify, it’s probably not worth it. 15 hours isn’t that much in the audiobook world. And it has a lot of titles, but if you are looking for specific books… Meh.

Audiobooks on the platform are also a little strange. They function similarly to playlists, songs and artists when searching and sorting. You can buy them individually if you run out of hours, or they aren’t in the premium plan, but you have to go through the PC version of Spotify and can’t do it from your phone.

https://www.spotify.com/ca-en/audiobooks/

Chirp

Chirp is delightful.

It functions like BookBub where every day you can get an email with audiobook selections that are marked down to stupidly low prices in genres that you choose.

I wasn’t sure about the platform initially but they get some big-name authors at very low prices.

The app is easy to use and relatively decent. It could use a few more features here and there but it sounds like the team is working on upgrading it. You can download and save the books for offline listening. And it’s easy to navigate around your library. (Something I find poor on Audible.)

The big downside with Chirp is that you’re waiting for things to go on sale. I treat Chirp as a fun surprise each day. Most days I buy nothing, but every now and again I pick up a random something. That being said, they have literally thousands of titles for under $5 every day so whose complaining.

I picked up the entire Poppy War Trilogy the other day for 4.99. It’s a series I’ve been meaning to get to, and there it was. I also tried a Harry Bosch novel for the first time thanks to Chirp. (It was pretty good.)

https://www.chirpbooks.com/

Libro FM

Libro.fm is a very cool platform.

For 18.99 a month, you get one credit a month. (One credit for one book most of the time.) You can purchase additional credits, or buy books a la carte, and download them for offline use in the app. You also get to own the books and can download them as a separate file for storage wherever you want. (Outside of their app.)

Sounds normal so far.

But… You can pick a local bookstore that gets a percentage of each of your purchases. It’s sort of a shop-local version of an audiobook platform. Your bookstore has to be registered with Libro but it seems like most stores are. (3 of the 4 in my neighbourhood are!)

The membership is a little more expensive, and the selection is a little less than Audible, but you get to support your local store. (Or whatever store you want.) And the website and app are great to navigate. (Much better than Audible’s.)

https://libro.fm/

— — —

Those are my top 3 but here are a few quick ones to consider.

Libby -

Online platform that works with your local library card

Pros — free, decent to use, free

Cons — selection is meh at times, waitlist for popular titles, 1 to 2 week long rental period before it ‘returns’ to the library

Hoopla

Online platform that works with your local library card.

Pros — free, good app, 3 week rental period

Cons — selection is meh at times, waitlist for popular titles

Your Local Library

Your local public library. (I’m lucky because the Toronto Public Library is amazing.)

Pros — free, good selection (depends very much on city), rare selection (lot of audiobooks that haven’t been digitized)

Cons — have to go there usually, delivery method (lot of books on tapes + CDs here), short rental period (usually 2 weeks)

Scribd

Subscription service similar to Audible but cheaper.

Pros — cheaper monthly fee, good selection

Cons — don’t get to keep books if you cancel, app could use work

Audiobooks.com

Subscription services similar to Audible.

Pros — get to keep books if subscription cancelled, one book a month with subscription plus one book from VIP selection at no extra charge

Cons — don’t love the interface, app is okay

— — —

So there is a list of the platforms I’ve tried and might recommend. (Each for different reasons.)

Please let me know if you’ve tried any that’d you recommend or any thoughts you have on these ones.

Cheers.