[Macworld]

Post your comments for First Look: Audiobooks.com is Netflix for audiobooks here

[mscaldas]

Really nice... But that's why we get stuck in front of the TV - Movies: $7.99, books:$25? and I'm sure I can watch way more movies than listen to books. What's the deal with the price here?

[flybynight]

Given the 2 examples shown in the images, audio books can be 15 to 28 hours in length. How many books could you really get through in a month? You'd have to have a lot of spare time to really make it worth it.

[wardoggie]

 mscaldas, on 24 January 2012 - 10:46 AM, said:

Really nice... But that's why we get stuck in front of the TV - Movies: $7.99, books:$25? and I'm sure I can watch way more movies than listen to books. What's the deal with the price here?

Maybe it's a function of just how antiquated the book publishing industry's thinking is? I'm not sure how much of that is dictated by the publishing industry's terms.

Here's how it breaks down for me. My commute is about an hour a day. That's about 20 hours/month of car time I could dedicate to audio books.

The audio book version of "Steve Jobs" on iTunes is $29.95 and runs 25 hours, 6 minutes. It's also available on audiobooks.com, but at $25/month, I'd break even by buying the book vs. renting it. IMO, in order for a rental service to be attractive to me, it would have to be a better value than buying. I don't think that's the case here, so I won't be subscribing.

[tjl1973]

 wardoggie, on 24 January 2012 - 11:53 AM, said:

Maybe it's a function of just how antiquated the book publishing industry's thinking is? I'm not sure how much of that is dictated by the publishing industry's terms.

Here's how it breaks down for me. My commute is about an hour a day. That's about 20 hours/month of car time I could dedicate to audio books.

The audio book version of "Steve Jobs" on iTunes is $29.95 and runs 25 hours, 6 minutes. It's also available on audiobooks.com, but at $25/month, I'd break even by buying the book vs. renting it. IMO, in order for a rental service to be attractive to me, it would have to be a better value than buying. I don't think that's the case here, so I won't be subscribing.

For $25/month that's more than the Audible Platinum account ($23/month) which is 2 credits (basically 2 books/month). Plus, with an Audible subscription you get a free NY Times or Wall Street Journal audio digest subscription.

I'll stick with my Audible Gold account. I have enough of a backlog of books waiting to tide me over for quite some time. Plus, I also listen on my commute (and while running errands) and since I'm either listening on my iPod Nano or a Touch, streaming won't work for me.

[NightshadesMac]

This service is definitely intriguing for me. I've been listening to audio books since the mid '90's and lately I'ver really upped my listening time. I just upgraded my Audible account from Gold to Platinum because one credit a month wasn't doing it for me. I have a few authors I'm currently interested in, some I want to re-discover and many I'd like to explore so this might work for me. I have plenty of time to listen and I enjoy it immensely but it's like Wardoggie said, it's a question of value. If I can listen to enough books in a month to justify the $25/month fee I might well have a go. Their selection is going to be the biggest issue for me because I like books that aren't necessarily on the best sellers lists so not having a contract commitment is a good thing. If that were the case I'd definitely avoid it.

I will check them out to see what they have but whether or not they could replace my Audible account is another matter. I really like Audible and adding this service would double the budget for audio books so that value question becomes even more important but I appreciate the review and learning about this service.

[RichardJackson]

I listen to multiple title per month, and I've already subscribed to the service. What I love about it over the Audible model is that once you buy a book on Audible your time and money is sunk into that book. If you don't like a book on Audiobooks.com, you move onto the next book. You can dip into many books until you find a book to your liking. Also Audiobooks.com is great for the shorter audiobooks length. At Audible you either bought them (in addition to your monthly credit charge) or you wasted a whole credit on them.

There is room for improvement. It needs the ability to place your titles in cue like Netflix. And more options to sort the titles.

[billycrenshaw]

Audiobooks.com are scam artists. I signed up for their so-called "7 day free trial", then went to cancel it on the 7th day (before the hour when I had first signed up). They went ahead and cancelled my account, cutting off my access to the service, then a charge went through anyway, for a month's service. After an hour on the phone with their so-called "customer service", they refused to either refund my money or give me the month of service that they had taken my money for, unless I agreed to sign up again for ongoing service. Thieves.