What is your strategy for Audible purchases?

[bisous]

My kind SIL bought me a 3 month premium guest membership on Audible. I'm already figuring out how to find free material to use, lol. I have found a number of books that I would be interested in listening to during the next three months! But I'm stumped about what to use my credits on! I guess I'm just wondering what I want to be able to KEEP. Through Libby, I can get almost any book I'm interested in...though I might have a waiting list and of course I can't keep it! I don't have any books right now that I'm super anxious to read...so I'm thinking a good strategy is to buy books I might actually listen to on repeat?

What is YOUR strategy with Audible credits? The idea of keeping a book is interesting. I'm glad I'm not stuck with finishing a long book in 3 weeks, but at the same time, I rarely listen to audiobooks more than once?

TIA!

[Liziz]

Such an interesting question! I am a prolific library user, like it seems you are, and while part of my reasoning is financially motivated, a big chunk of it is also just that it's incredibly rare that I want to read a book again....and I'd say I listen to ~45-50 audiobooks/year, and I have loved many....but can't think of any I'd really pick to listen to again! I know some people go back to old favorites again and again, but I've just found that isn't me!

I'm wondering if you might enjoy using your Audible credits for books you think multiple members of your family would enjoy -- of course, it's your credits, you should pick books YOU want -- but if there's any overlap in reading interests, maybe that would be a way to feel like you're getting a good bang for your buck?

Other thoughts: are there books not available as audiobooks at your library on your to-read list? Pick those if Audible has them! I've also heard there's a feature on Audible where you can switch between the audiobook and a digital book -- so you could read a chapter, then listen to a few, then open back up your e-reader and pick up where the audiobook left off. I don't know any of the details as I haven't used it....but I know there's some books where I would love this feature -- so might seek out a book like that (for me, it's generally the heavier fantasy/sci-fi books that often have a lot of unusual pronunciations and words, and I enjoy listening to get the intended pronunciation....but then I also want to read some because I want to know what those names/words "look" like)

[gobadgers]

I don't have an Audible account anymore, so take this with a grain of salt. But I use Libby all the time too, and I would use the credits for long or intense books that have a wait list and are difficult to finish in 3 weeks. The Covenant of Water comes to mind. (That's how I use the Amazon promotional credits!)

[Gracemom]

I love Libby so much that I just cancelled Audible. I used my last few credits on books that were read by the authors. I don't really enjoy fiction on Audible but I love hearing from the author themselves, especially memoirs.

[Percycat]

I don't have an Audible account anymore, so take this with a grain of salt. But I use Libby all the time too, and I would use the credits for long or intense books that have a wait list and are difficult to finish in 3 weeks. The Covenant of Water comes to mind. (That's how I use the Amazon promotional credits!)

Please explain this more. I get lots of credits and sometimes use them to rent movies the family wants to see that aren't streaming free somewhere. How do I do this for books? Do I have to have an audible account? What do I use to listen to the books? I listen to lots of books for free through libby.... but I frequently want a book for a book club or a book that is not available at any of the libraries I have access to... this would be a great way to use my credits before they disappear from nonuse!

[bisous]

Dang. Just wrote a long response and lost it!

Thank you for all the replies!

I like the idea of getting something the whole family can benefit from. I discovered that the entire Chronicles of Narnia is only one credit. I'm most definitely getting that one.

Long books or long wait times is another good strategy. I can think of a few times in the past few months that I'd probably be willing to give up a credit to jump on a book release but nothing is coming to mind right now. I mean, I'm super excited to read a lot of books but although I have to wait a few weeks, my TBR list is sufficiently long that there is almost always SOMETHING I can read! But it might be a good idea to hang on to that credit for just such an occasion!

I'll probably start a list and not decide what to buy until the end of the three months. I'll try to maximize the free listening until then. I found a good amount of books on the Audible Plus catalog that I'd be willing to try. Not tons but at least 5 that I found rather fast?

Liziz, I'll have to look into that feature! I definitely see the need in some of the fantasy universes that I've stumbled into. On Libby I recently checked out an audiobook and an ebook at the same time for a somewhat dense history book. They would have lot of names, dates, geographical locations that I sometimes needed to just see in writing in order to understand. While I almost always listen at 1.75x speed on audiobooks, I've noticed that denser volumes get slowed down or segments repeated so often that it is taking me the same amount of time to complete the book as if I had read it at 1x speed!

I'm also curious about how to use Amazon credits. I haven't looked into that enough. We're definitely heavy prime users so it would be smart to figure out!

This is giving me some phrases that I can search and see if I can figure out how to use this membership best. I kind of feel like the newbie that shows up to Disneyland without a plan, lol. I'm sure I'll have a great time, but if I do a little research I'll find ways to optimize the number of rides I get on and improve my experience.

[gobadgers]

Please explain this more. I get lots of credits and sometimes use them to rent movies the family wants to see that aren't streaming free somewhere. How do I do this for books? Do I have to have an audible account? What do I use to listen to the books? I listen to lots of books for free through libby.... but I frequently want a book for a book club or a book that is not available at any of the libraries I have access to... this would be a great way to use my credits before they disappear from nonuse!

I was mistaken - it looks like I've only used the promotional credits to buy Kindle books, NOT audiobooks. It says "$x.xx after promotional credits", I thought it was both audio and Kindle. It doesn't show up that way when I'm looking right now, though I swear I bought one last year with credits. My only explanation is mom brain. ugh.

[dogmom]

I use my occasional audible credits for newer books that are long that I would have to wait to get.

Also, my library has moved from Libby to Hoopla, so far so good.

[echoesofspring]

I just dropped my Audible sub down to where I'm still a member but don't accumulate credits b/c I have too many credits and don't know what to do with them. And once I spend my credits I'll probably cancel my sub b/c yeah my library has more audiobooks than ebooks available it seems. When the kids were younger I got a lot of bang for the buck getting to buy whole series like Ramona and Beezus, that the kids listened to over and over. We had several authors like that. But now they have aged out of those books and I've found it hard to replicate the success.

So right now I'm trying to buy things that I will go through a lot slower or return back to/reference so I'd like to have a copy. I haven't found so many of those yet. My last purchase was "Atomic Habits" and I do really like that and I was just thinking today I need to rewind and relisten.

One thing that might not be obvious unless you know they are there is that some of The Great Courses content is available for Audible purchases. I think like anything the quality can vary, but I've purchased a few lecture series that way, mostly from a professor whose courses I already had experience with so I knew what I was going to get. Maybe there are other brands like that on there.