Edit: A couple times I’ve said eBook while I actually meant Audiobook. I’ve learned that Spotify has a 15 hour limit per month for their free ‘included in premium’ audiobooks. However these are the two books I listened to for free, and even rounding up to 13 hours it doesn’t make sense, unless they count accidental chapter skips which weren’t actually listened to. But it’s clear now that I know about the 15 hour limit, that they are not counting the time listening to paid audiobooks.
First book I listened to for free:
Second book I listened to for free:
OG post:
I purchased 3 eBooks in the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy series (2 came free) and I’m on the final book. 20 minutes left in the last book and this is what Spotify tells me.
I’m over the edge now. I’ve been putting it off too long. I have a nice NUC I purchased about a year ago.
I’m tech inclined, 20 years of hobbyism, know the linux command line well. Work in IT consulting. But I’m busy. Very busy, and unmotivated to do things like hours of research and toying with settings getting things to work, if I ever have the time.
But this is the start of my new personal revolution.
I’ll read the wiki and have read about Sonarr, etc, and I also want movies and shows, but is there anything specifically for eBooks? Looks like Readarr is my best bet? Stripping the DRM of already purchased (and free with Spotify ‘Premium’) books to share on a seedbox is also something I’m willing to take requests on. Is there a way to rip from Spotify if you have a premium account? And what’s the best Android eBook reader (the last 3-4 I tried sucked with pirated eBooks)?
I know I’m sounding like a noob asking everything to be handed to me right now, but I am willing to put in the research and welcome and highly appreciate anyone with tips to point me in the right directions.
If the experience that a paying customer gets is worse than the experience they get from pirating, then that’s the fault of the company selling that enshitified experience.
It’s wild how modern businesses are trying to kill themselves with every terrible idea they have to make more money.
As shitty as Amazon is, I will say that the books I’ve gotten through Audible are all still there and I can listen to them whenever I want even though I don’t have a subscription or anything anymore.
Audible replaced a version of a book my boyfriend bought with a completely different version of the same book. I mean a different narrator and everything. He had purchased the book a few years earlier but he didn’t manage to get a refund from them.
The Martian by Andy weir was my first experience of this. They re-recorded it with will wheaton and I “lost” my original with RC Bray. Though I will admit my version was part of the plus catalog, I still didn’t get a choice.
OP hasn’t purchased any book. They’re on a plan that lets them listen to any book for free, except it’s time-limited.
I bought a few books off audible, and while I can still access them even without a subscription, I still have them converted to mp3 on my NAS, in case I ever lose access to audible for some reason.
Have you found a way to split those mp3s into several files by chapter etc.? All converters that I have tried so far just yield a single, several hours long mp3…
https://github.com/audiamus/AaxAudioConverter
This should be able to split them by chapter.
I always used SmartAudiobookPlayer (android). It saves your progress nicely. Never felt the need for chapters
Full Explanation:
Spotify introduced Audiobooks to their platform in November 2023:
- Unlimited listening to public domain classics.
- 15 free hours per month of premium audiobooks.
- 10 hour top ups available.
- Can purchase premium audiobooks for unlimited listening.
OP purchased book 1 and can listen to it all they want. They did not purchase book 2 or 3, and also listened to other audiobooks, putting them over the 15 hour limit.
Key Facts:
- Spotify Audiobooks are a new feature with no additional subscription cost.
- OP used all of their free credits for the month.
- OP was never prevented from listening to a book they purchased.
That said, stop paying for audiobooks like a chump and get a library card.
All the free audiobooks you want from your library using hoopla and Libby.
I tried this and the waiting list for anything remotely worth a damn was months long. I just went and pirated the thing instead.
Has your experience been different?
The more you use the library the better it is. My partner reads almost a hundred books a year. She’s voracious. She reads them almost exclusively through the library. With Libby you’re able to juggle holds easily so that new books are always coming up when you finish the last one. If it comes back too early you just tell it to wait.
I particularly seem to be into stuff that my community isn’t feverishly trying to rent. That helps haha. Traditional paper books too, I could keep renewing them for a stupid amount of time because they didn’t end up on hold. Found out the limit was 255 renewals until they suddenly dropped it to like 10 max. :(
But sadly all the good nerd stuff like R.A. Salvatore books or Discworld always has queues, yeah.
I can get almost anything from my library as long as it’s not the brand new hotness. Occasionally there’ll be a book here or a book there that’s got one person waiting in line, but our maximum checkout time is a week. I pull the book down rip the audio from it and free up my hold the same day.
I mean, seems like this is way better for listening to audiobooks than when they had no audiobooks whatsoever
So OP is complaining about being limited by the amount of free books OP can listen to? Sounds fair to me, these things cost money to make, and websites cost money to run.
Ok, thats funny. But for real, what I’m lightly annoyed by is the way they seem to be using the 15 hours of audiobooks as a sort of free-trial to get you to buy more credits, and also how much podcasts and audiobooks are pushed even for those of us who exclusively use spotify for music. On the other hand, if you use the feature, it cost you nothing additional to use up to that 15 hours, or those free books, its strictly a value add.
Oh man, I did the hard work (it was easy) of reading some rules and answering some questions via irc to get an invite to MAM and wow is that a treasure-trove of ebooks and audiobooks.
Reading is hard when doing several hour long commutes… Audiobooks also can enhance the book as some are edited to cut out parts which really don’t contribute. A good editor can make or break a book. I do like reading, but there are times where audiobooks not only provide better experience, they are also the most time efficient as can be enjoyed during other tasks.
See my other comment: https://lemmy.world/comment/7069535
You’re making disingenuous assumptions when you say I listened to other audiobooks. I have only listened to this series. purchased 3, and listened to 2 of the free (premium) books. I did not listen to any other books. There were a couple times it skipped a chapter with an accidental scroll, and I had to scroll back, but I didn’t actually listen so it shouldn’t count.
I wasn’t aware of the 15 hour limit but of course I am now as it’s been pointed out many times in this thread. I didn’t even know they had audiobooks until they started showing up on the opening screen of Spotify. I got hooked listening to the Steven Fry narrated OG book and then went to buy the next 3 and the last book in the series was also included in premium so I listened without buying. Still, 13 hours (which makes up for any skipping) is not 15 hours, so there’s either a bug or they intentionally count unlistened to skipped chapters as being listened to.
I’m getting Libby setup today with my library card.
You do realise this is a pirate community? The way yor comment reads, it seems like you dislike OP wanting free stuff.
I am aware of people doing some mental gymnastics to justify piracy. But IMHO that is about the same difference as a pirate to a privateer. Just acknowledge that you want stuff without paying and hoist that black flag.
https://archive.org/details/hhgttg-ab/
Read by Stephen Fry, no less.
The OG HHGTTG is, the prequel and subsequent books in the series are not unfortunately. But I got used to the other guys voice quickly.
Good to know. Someone posted that in a Books community a few months back and I had it bookmarked. So far, I’ve only listened to the first one that Fry narrated.
The Steven Fry narration really drew me in. He’s fantastic. I was bummed when I started listening to the others but quickly got used to it. Martin Freeman is a good narrator, if not as animated and loud as Fry.
Tbh as a quick fix your local library almost certainly has this audio book. Finish your book then you can look into piracy.
Sadly, that’s the case less and less these days. Distributors are forcing libraries to use digital resources and gouging them on prices.
That would probably explain why mine has 2 digital copies of a book to loan out, and there’s usually a line of 50 people waiting for them.
You reminded me I do have major regional library card access, if they don’t expire after a couple years.
Do you mean the book is accessible through the Libby app or do you mean to physically go to the library and get a DVD or something? Because my library for example has a very limited number of books in Libby and the last time my PC had DVD-ROM was in 2008
Don’t panic. You’ve come to the right place. Spread out your towel and lay on it for a nice nap while you wait for lemmings to reply.
