5 ms·

Spotify for books

28 points by Turukawa 12y ago

bdcravens 12y ago
O'Reilly's Safari Books Online has had this for years.
pbreit 12y ago
The audio books situation is even more obviously pathetic, at least in Audible's case. On Audible, for $15 a month you get to listen to, wait for it, ONE book! Worse than that, each additional books costs. Worse still is that prices appear to be at or near hard-back prices. And to add insult to injury, this arrangement prevents the purchasing of books on iOS devices (I guess because Amazon doesn't want to pay the 30%)! Compare this to Hulu, Netflix and Spotify which offer unlimited consumption (although with incomplete libraries) for around $10 per month.
- jurassic 12y ago
  I agree the normal prices are very high, but I've learned that the key to Audible seems to be waiting for good sales to come around. They have members-only daily deals and other sales fairly regularly. I bought several books today because they are having a $6.95 members-only sale on a lot of popular titles right now.
- kabdib 12y ago
  Audible: Wait for sales. Also, Downpour offers many of the titles Audible has, often for much less, and DRM-free.
- Puts 12y ago
  Audible is like the worst of two worlds. You pay per book, but yet they are not yours to keep.
SwellJoe 12y ago
I have had Kindle Unlimited for a few months. It saves me money most months...I was reading about $20-$30 worth of books per month before, now I'm down to about $15 (Unlimited has a good selection, but there are still significant titles that aren't available via Unlimited). My local library offers ebooks, and even has a pretty good selection, but everything I ever want is always checked out and has a waiting list, so I end up buying a lot more than borrowing. It's worrying that there may be a future in which people need paid for subscriptions for a functional library (since I can foresee a day not too far away where printed books are considered relics).
subpixel 12y ago
It relies on annoyingly bad 3rd-party software (so it's not 'fun' like I imagine a Spotify for books would be) but in the US you can get ebooks and audiobooks from your local library. My wife is a master at this, with library cards in three cities (where we live, where we used to live, and where she grew up). She's literally never not reading a book and she's got a deep bench of books-to-be-read all lined up. Some libraries are actually going DIY: http://evoke.cvlsites.org/ http://evoke.cvlsites.org/
EliRivers 12y ago
Actual physical books are still pretty good; I can't speak for other countries, but the county in the UK I live in (as is common in all UK counties, I believe) will fetch books for you from anywhere else in the county for fifty pence a pop, and if they haven't got it in county the inter-library loans turn out to be astonishingly fast and remarkably good value. I have requested some quite obtuse books over the past year and they've managed them all so far; coming from the British Library in London, a university maths library in Leeds, a university library in Exeter, somewhere I couldn't even tell where it came from, and so on. If you like reading, and you don't absolutely need the convenience of the book weighing very little and being quite small (i.e. an eReader of some kind - I'm a fan of old Sony models), physical books from a national library network are still really good.
teddyh 12y ago
“There should be a Netflix for books.” “THE LIBRARY” http://www.johnnywander.com/comics/24 http://www.johnnywander.com/comics/24

28 points by Turukawa 12y ago

O'Reilly's Safari Books Online has had this for years.

The audio books situation is even more obviously pathetic, at least in Audible's case. On Audible, for $15 a month you get to listen to, wait for it, ONE book! Worse than that, each additional books costs. Worse still is that prices appear to be at or near hard-back prices. And to add insult to injury, this arrangement prevents the purchasing of books on iOS devices (I guess because Amazon doesn't want to pay the 30%)! Compare this to Hulu, Netflix and Spotify which offer unlimited consumption (although with incomplete libraries) for around $10 per month.

jurassic 12y ago
I agree the normal prices are very high, but I've learned that the key to Audible seems to be waiting for good sales to come around. They have members-only daily deals and other sales fairly regularly. I bought several books today because they are having a $6.95 members-only sale on a lot of popular titles right now.
kabdib 12y ago
Audible: Wait for sales. Also, Downpour offers many of the titles Audible has, often for much less, and DRM-free.
Puts 12y ago
Audible is like the worst of two worlds. You pay per book, but yet they are not yours to keep.

SwellJoe 12y ago

I have had Kindle Unlimited for a few months. It saves me money most months...I was reading about $20-$30 worth of books per month before, now I'm down to about $15 (Unlimited has a good selection, but there are still significant titles that aren't available via Unlimited). My local library offers ebooks, and even has a pretty good selection, but everything I ever want is always checked out and has a waiting list, so I end up buying a lot more than borrowing. It's worrying that there may be a future in which people need paid for subscriptions for a functional library (since I can foresee a day not too far away where printed books are considered relics).

subpixel 12y ago

It relies on annoyingly bad 3rd-party software (so it's not 'fun' like I imagine a Spotify for books would be) but in the US you can get ebooks and audiobooks from your local library. My wife is a master at this, with library cards in three cities (where we live, where we used to live, and where she grew up). She's literally never not reading a book and she's got a deep bench of books-to-be-read all lined up. Some libraries are actually going DIY: http://evoke.cvlsites.org/ http://evoke.cvlsites.org/

EliRivers 12y ago

Actual physical books are still pretty good; I can't speak for other countries, but the county in the UK I live in (as is common in all UK counties, I believe) will fetch books for you from anywhere else in the county for fifty pence a pop, and if they haven't got it in county the inter-library loans turn out to be astonishingly fast and remarkably good value. I have requested some quite obtuse books over the past year and they've managed them all so far; coming from the British Library in London, a university maths library in Leeds, a university library in Exeter, somewhere I couldn't even tell where it came from, and so on. If you like reading, and you don't absolutely need the convenience of the book weighing very little and being quite small (i.e. an eReader of some kind - I'm a fan of old Sony models), physical books from a national library network are still really good.

teddyh 12y ago

“There should be a Netflix for books.” “THE LIBRARY” http://www.johnnywander.com/comics/24 http://www.johnnywander.com/comics/24