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Comment by dudus | Hacker News Reader

I tried audio books on Google play and was positively surprised. Great UX ... I can cast to my Chromecast audio, I can add a shortcut to resume my book with one click on my phone. It integrates with Google assistant, easy chapter navigation, easy to manage downloads... Everything just worked better than expected. I had a past experience with audible that was far from great. I ended up cancelling my subscription and mostly forgot about audio books, mostly because of UX. Now I'm hooked again.

Prices were also pretty low, although I think they were running a promo because it was a new service.

I don't think they have a subscription model though. It's a pay per book kind of thing. I prefer this way because with the subscription I always felt like I was missing out if I didn't listen to at least 3 books. But there's value in having a subscription model.

Curious if someone have experience with other audio book ecosystems

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How long ago did you have Audible? Alexa/Sonos is "coming" but for now I just stream via Airplay to home speakers. As for the rest, I don't have any of those issues with the iOS app, seems pretty easy.

The audible subscription is a much better value, when I get full on credits I can just cancel my sub until I'm ready for more books and don't have to pay $40 or something. If I really want a cheap book (something less than the subscription price, I will just buy outright and save my tokens for something expensive)

My only real complaint with Amazon (and it may be a publisher rule) is you don't get the kindle version for free. If I want to switch between book and text seamlessly I have to buy both versions.

Does anyone know if the author gets less money when buying an audio book vs a text book?

I used to use audible solely. Their incredibly high prices drove me away. Their subscription is stupid in my mind. To me it’s just a way to make users forget so they pay for another month. I’ve been using hoopla for the past 6 months and love it. It’s free with a library card.

Same story here. I haven’t had to buy an audiobook for a year cause the library always has what I want.

I tend towards fairly dense nonfiction like Scale (finished yesterday). That's nearly 20 hours at 1x playback, which the effective price was $15 w/ my membership.

I find a huge amount of value for the effective $1-2 per hour I end up paying, even before considering the no-thought-required return policy and pro-rating the cost from multiple listens.

YMMV, but I consider my audible subscription some of the best value I receive for my money.

Audible works for me on the Echo. However, you cannot change the playback speed from 1x right now, which is a deal breaker for me.

I prefer to let my ebook reader just read the ebook to me, Samsung has a great TTS engine and google's isn't bad. This way I can switch between listening and reading. I generally only listen when I'm driving or working out. I usually prefer to read.

Can anyone provide any further details on what device(s)/software provide Samsung's TTS?

Similar details on the best ways to use Google's would also be much appreciated!

< when I get full on credits I can just cancel my sub

But you lose the credits when you do this.

Alexa/Sonos is here... it's called the Sonos One

Google's "Family Library" applies to their audio books. Is there an Audible equivalent? Edit: It looks like it is called Amazon "Household Sharing" (requiring Amazon Prime).

I'm not familiar with any particular benefit of one group access option vs. any other. I hope all these digital libraries will start dealing with beneficiaries inheriting things as a first-class scenario soon!

Maybe at some point they will decide to use their Wavenet[0] for audiobook narrating

[0] https://deepmind.com/blog/wavenet-generative-model-raw-audio...

But the narration is half the reason I pay for audiobooks -- it's an immersive experience and the variety in narrators keeps things fresh.

Fantasy books are notably that much more interesting with dedicated narrators.

Agreed - I "reread" some books (Diamond Age, Hyperion, etc) and good narration caused me to appreciate sections that I essentially "fast forwarded through" in print book reading (of course, I was much younger when I first read those books).

A good example is Altered Carbon - the narrator is Takeshi Kovacs.

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