[prepend]

> But, we should ask if you would want to hang out with the voice actor at a party.

I think the question is really “Will I be able to enjoy great books I otherwise would not have experienced?”

For me, it’s not that these are superior or equivalent books to parents reading to their kid or voice actors; it’s whether I’ll listen to a book for free that I wouldn’t be able to afford $10-30.

[therealdrag0]

Plus lots of books don’t have audiobooks. I’ve a few sitting on my to read list for years on end just cuz there’s no audio. Being able to make one myself with AI would be awesome.

[prepend]

This precisely.

Also, I’ve bought ebooks and want to listen to the book but don’t want to pay again for the voice acting. So I’ve bought a license to the IP and would like to listen rather than read.

[low_tech_love]

Audible is $7.95 a month and you can listen to whatever book you want (like Spotify). If you’re not willing to go even with that in order to listen to an actual human, then maybe yeah, you can try AI.

[philomath_mn]

> Audible is $7.95 a month and you can listen to whatever book you want (like Spotify)

Not true at all. Audible Plus gives you access to a tiny subset of the full library, the rest (which includes all the best titles) need to be purchased separately.

[bodge5000]

Unless things have changed since I was a subscriber, you get a token every month which can be used to purchase any book from the full library. So its effectively 1 book a month + a few extras bonuses for $7.95

[izzydata]

You don't get a token without paying for the premium plan at $15 a month. Also, don't tell anyone but if you subscribe and then cancel and give the reason that it is too expensive you can often get a reduced price the next few months.

[servercobra]

It's not at all like Spotify. The library you get for $7.95/mo is very limited. If it was like Spotify I'd happily pay a hell of a lot more than that.

[prepend]

Audible is $15/month and you get to choose one title.

I think you’re confusing audible today with audible of 20 years ago.

[thinkmassive]

I typically buy at least two titles per month, and the best deal ended up being:

Audible Premium Plus - 1 Credit Every Other Month for $17 ($8.50/mo)

You can buy 3 more credits for $37.99 (12.66/ea). It’s also worth checking individual titles because quite a few cost less than the credits.

Correction: I guess I actually buy slightly fewer than 2/mo because there’s a plan for that ($22.95/mo) that’s cheaper than the 27.50/mo from my numbers above. I had that one for a while but ended up feeling pressured to use them before they expire.

[swores]

You probably won't be interested since it's even more pressure to use them before they expire, but there's also annual plans which are even cheaper if you can be happy using 12 (or 24) tokens within 12 months (you get them at the start and they expire at the end of the year):

Audible Premium Plus Annual - 12 Credits $149.50/year (way cheaper in UK: £69.99/year)

Audible Premium Plus Annual - 24 Credits $229.50/year (£109.99/year)

US: https://www.audible.com/ep/memberbenefits UK: https://help.audible.co.uk/s/article/what-are-the-different-...

Although, as soon as I'm logged in with my account (UK) which had subscribed in the past but isn't currently, it doesn't seem to be giving me any options except to start a 1 month free trial for 1 token/month, not sure if other options aren't available or just extremely well hidden...

edit: no it is available for my account, though I'm going to remain a non-subscriber and keep using my local digital library :)

[thinkmassive]

Hah thank you, the optionality is worth $0.20/mo to me.

I wish there were better options for listening 20-25 hours/mo. Like Amazon in general, the selection + convenience is tough to beat.