I Am an Audiobook Convert

I am old enough to remember the days when what we now know as audiobooks were known as books on tape. I also remember, through social osmosis, gaining the distinct impression that books on tape were for either the visually impaired, or for high school and university students who couldn’t be bothered to put full effort into their assigned reading.

As those initial impressions from our youth tend to stick, I remained resistant to audiobooks for a long time. Even as both ebooks and audiobooks rose in popularity in recent years, reading to me meant an actual book with paper pages in my hand. However, I did find myself often listening to podcasts instead of music when I was out for a walk or doing the dishes.

I’ve also never been one to look down on consuming a story via television rather than reading a book. While there are certainly strengths and weaknesses to each medium, a story is a story. In fact, my love of sci fi started with Star Trek Voyager.

Finally, I had to ask myself the question: What’s the difference?

If I’ll listen to podcast, why not listen to fiction? If I’ll watch a TV series, why not listen to a novel? Also, I was increasingly finding reading time hard to find. There’s always the option of reading at bedtime, but increasingly that meant reading everything two pages at a time because I was too tired to get any further. But I was still resistant to audiobooks.

My main qualm has been that buying an ebook or audiobook seems far from equivalent to buying a physical book. When I buy a regular book, I can read it wherever I want, whenever want, and as many times as I want. When I’m done with it, I can lend it to someone, or donate it. Digital files, on the other hand, come with protections that prevent sharing, and often come in weird formats that can only be played with certain apps.

This is like buying a hardcover at Indigo and being told you can only read it in your kitchen, you can’t lend it to your friend, and by the way, if we ever go out of business (or if we just feel like it) we’ll be taking the book back. Thanks for the $40, have a nice day!

Realizing I could access audiobooks for free with my library app is what eventually pushed me to give audiobooks a go. What did I have to lose? If I started listening to something and didn’t like it, I could just return it. I could only listen through the app, but this is less irksome when it’s something I don’t own anyway. Occasionally, I would buy a book through Play Books, but for the most part, I could get what I wanted through the library for free. It didn’t take long before I was hooked. No more $40 hardbacks, or waiting for the paperback to come out. It was great. I’m converted.

Then, for some reason, the selection at my city library (at least via their app) for audiobooks tanked. Plenty of books I had saved on my wish list were no longer in the catalogue. If I’m going to keep listening to audiobooks, I have to buy them. Sigh. I did the math, and decided an Audible subscription is worthwhile given how much listening I’m now doing and its cheaper overall than buying elsewhere.

For the most part, I’m actually happy with it so far. Being part of Amazon, the Audible selection is great, titles often go on sale, and what I pay per credit is less than most physical books cost these days. But there are some downsides. The main one being, I was right that paying for an audiobook doesn’t really mean I own my copy.

When I tried to figure out where the Audible files I downloaded were stored on my phone, it was far from obvious. When I finally found them (Internal Storage > Android > data > com.audible.application > files) the mp4 files there were labelled in such a way that it was impossible to determine which files correlate with which books. No matter, I couldn’t get them to play in my media player anyway.

I did find that, when I log into my Audible account on my PC, I can download recognizable files to my computer to back them up. At least some of them. Books I purchased outright, I can download. Books I bought with Audible credits, I can’t. Even though I paid money to get those credits. Hmmm. Also, the Audible files are aax format, which can only be played by the Audible App (as far as I know). I’m sure there is away to convert them, but I haven’t figured that part out yet.

Oh well, I’ve become too much of an audiobook fan to give them up at this point. I guess it all comes down to what I’m willing to pay for the service I’m getting. For now I’m sticking with Audible, while keeping watch on my library app in case the selection greatly improves.