Audible has launched a new unlimited subscription service for romance audiobooks, whereby readers can pay $6.95 as an add-on to an existing Audible subscription or pay a flat fee of $14.95.
Each book is rated either sweet, simmering, sizzling, hot damn or O-O-OMG, and readers can drill down through 41 micro-categories and 131 story and character tropes to find their next listen.
Audible’s unlimited romance audio-book subscription service
Audible says it is
debuting “Take Me to the Good Part,” a pioneering feature that uses data science and machine learning to allow listeners to go straight to the most sought out and memorable sections of a romance audiobook.
adding
Subscribers can enjoy intimate listening experiences with Blair Underwood, Dermot Mulroney, Jesse Metcalfe, and thousands of other alluring voices.
Audible claims to have
invented and commercialized the first digital audio player in 1997, and has since been at the forefront of the explosively growing audiobook download segment … In 2016, Audible members downloaded an average of more than 17 books over the course of the year. More than half of new Audible members are first-time audiobook buyers.]
Amazon bought Audible for $300 million in 2008.
Wow! Hope my books are in there.
Jean, see Isobel Starling’s comment below.
It appears that Audible has been less than clear about how they have gone about providing this service. I have spoken to many authors whose titles are included and me bringing it to their attention was the first they’d heard of it. They were not contacted by audible to ask if they wished to be part of the program and they have no idea how much they will be paid from the program.
Also, the books listed are only from publishers. I find this bizarre.
On one hand Audible are trying to champion indie authors to create audiobooks using ACX and on the other, when it comes to promotions on site and programmes such as, this they ignore all indie content, even if it does have lots of reviews and excellent ratings.
I wish they would make their minds up!
Thanks, Isobel. Will do a follow-up post on this.