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Why none of my books are available on Audible

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Re: Why none of my books are available on Audible

#71

Post by failrate »

Mordisquitos wrote: post #35
failrate wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is trivial for you, but it is impossible for most audiobook listeners. Most people do not have the same computer wherewithal as us.

Yes, that is why I suggest making the explanation and process more readily available. Non-tech savvy users who already care about the problems of DRM should kmow it is possible to remove it, and ideally have access to a user-friendly way to do it. On the other hand, those who don't even know what DRM is or why it matters may get greater exposure to the issue.

How about this ease of use feature: Audible drops DRM. Everyone wins.

Re: Why none of my books are available on Audible

#72

Post by lioeters »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #58
lioeters wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reminds me when I learned how blind people use the screen reader, the setting for the voice can be at an incredibly fast speed, where the words turn into "bits" of sound. I know people who watch YouTube videos like that, and my brain cannot process spoken words so fast. It also reminds me of hip hop, some of those raps are like a machine gun of words that overload the brain. It's probably about personal preferen…

> my brain cannot process spoken words that fast Not at first. This is something that people train themselves to do gradually. For me it didn't take very long to get to 3x playback speed for audiobooks, which untrained people usually find incomprehensible, but I started out much slower and then increased the speed a little every day because I wanted to be able to listen to more books.

That's interesting to know. It makes sense, it's a listening skill that can be developed.

I've always wanted to deepen my knowledge of web accessibility, and get more familiar with screen readers - but was afraid it might be too frustrating to navigate while listening to a voice, slow enough to understand.

Now I know, it just takes practice. Thanks!

Re: Why none of my books are available on Audible

#73

Post by swozey »

icyfox wrote: post #36

Audible has some flagrant dark patterns in their design for consumers as well. While you _could_ buy independent audiobooks at cost, their most popular model is to subscribe to a monthly membership where you earn one credit a month. This monthly credit can buy any audio book. The dig comes if you decide you have too many credits cached. Perhaps because you can't get through one audiobook a month. If you cancel a subs…

At some point this year Audible also stopped letting you see the price of audiobooks in the Audible app, you also can't purchase books without using an Audible credit via the App.

It's clearly so that people like me who save credits and only use them on $22+ books have no idea what a book actually costs without looking them up. I buy anything under $12-15 with cash since credits are basically $12, at least in the 3 credit bundle.

Jokes on them though, now I buy even less books and stick to my unread library more nowadays.

Re: Why none of my books are available on Audible

#74

Post by diffeomorphism »

ldjb wrote: post #67
icyfox wrote: post #36

Audible has some flagrant dark patterns in their design for consumers as well. While you _could_ buy independent audiobooks at cost, their most popular model is to subscribe to a monthly membership where you earn one credit a month. This monthly credit can buy any audio book. The dig comes if you decide you have too many credits cached. Perhaps because you can't get through one audiobook a month. If you cancel a subs…

There are many valid criticisms of Audible, but I think membership pricing is just something that will suit some people more than others. Personally, I have no trouble buying on average one book per month. I think that the ability to accumulate credits offers quite a lot of flexibility. Instead of being forced to buy one book every month, I can opt not to buy a book this month, but instead buy two books next month. A…

> isn't entirely reasonable...

Credits or vouchers are not a new thing. Common schemes are limited duration, buying when you need them (possibly with bulk discount) instead of every month or buying every month but automatically stopping if you still have 10 stocked up (e.g. pop-up for phone's) or returning/selling unused vouchers for X%, ...

Given all these options available offering "nothing at all" seems not that reasonable.

Re: Why none of my books are available on Audible

#75

Post by jollins »

swozey wrote: post #73
icyfox wrote: post #36

Audible has some flagrant dark patterns in their design for consumers as well. While you _could_ buy independent audiobooks at cost, their most popular model is to subscribe to a monthly membership where you earn one credit a month. This monthly credit can buy any audio book. The dig comes if you decide you have too many credits cached. Perhaps because you can't get through one audiobook a month. If you cancel a subs…

At some point this year Audible also stopped letting you see the price of audiobooks in the Audible app, you also can't purchase books without using an Audible credit via the App. It's clearly so that people like me who save credits and only use them on $22+ books have no idea what a book actually costs without looking them up. I buy anything under $12-15 with cash since credits are basically $12, at least in the 3 c…

I’m pretty certain the price removal was due to App Store and Play store policy. If you list the price, users expect to be able to purchase in-app, which then means Audible forks over the 30% tariff the platforms take.

Re: Why none of my books are available on Audible

#76

Post by knaik94 »

lioeters wrote: post #72
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my brain cannot process spoken words that fast Not at first. This is something that people train themselves to do gradually. For me it didn't take very long to get to 3x playback speed for audiobooks, which untrained people usually find incomprehensible, but I started out much slower and then increased the speed a little every day because I wanted to be able to listen to more books.

That's interesting to know. It makes sense, it's a listening skill that can be developed. I've always wanted to deepen my knowledge of web accessibility, and get more familiar with screen readers - but was afraid it might be too frustrating to navigate while listening to a voice, slow enough to understand. Now I know, it just takes practice. Thanks!

Youtube videos with closed captions on are a nice way to ease into it. There's chrome extensions to increase the speed over the '2x' playback option youtube gives you. I personally don't enjoy podcasts at above 1.3x to 1.5x speed but when I am reading along with subtitles, I can increase the speed easily to 2.7x+. I don't think I did any specific practice.

After a certain amount of minutes, at 1.5x speed, the cadence of lectures at high speed start to feel normal and going back to 1.0x speed feels slow, as if it was 0.7x speed. Sort of like an audio illusion.

It reminds me of the feeling you get when you have been on a highway at a high speed for hours on a road trip. For whatever reason, my brain stops understanding how fast the "slow" speed of 20mph is is. So it feels extra slow even though relative to walking it's really fast.

Recently I came across Jump Cutter https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/jump-cutter/lmppdp... which is an extension to speed up silences while keeping spoken audio at normal speed. You can customize it, but it's been an interesting experience, the audio is at an effective 1.9x speed while only being 1.4x during the spoken section.

Screen readers have a place, but the value in screen readers for the non-visually impaired is limited to the text-to-speech function. After a certain point, the synthetic voices and physics make it hard to produce intelligible sounds even if your brain can process it faster. Certain sounds end up getting cut or the software starts skipping words and it not something you can fix for every scenario. https://github.com/espeak-ng/espeak-ng/issues/131 an ongoing thread talking about how this can be mitigated.

I also know that some visually impaired people get used to certain voices to the point where they can make at words at a higher speed using a specific voice compared to others. The robot voices easier to understand than the more human sounding ones.

Getting to 3x is much much easier than you imagine, it will take less than an hour if you increase the speed by 0.2x every 15ish minutes. You get used to it really quickly. The human brain is pretty fantastic in that regard. I personally found that past 2.7x speed, even if I can understand the words, I can't comprehend new ideas and words fast enough for it to make sense and I end up having to pause. There definitely is a a point of diminishing returns, and for me it's around 2.6x, 2.7x. It depends on the lecturer cadence though.

If you want simple emulation of navigating using a screen reader, navigating having disabled your mouse is a good starting point. NVDA is the gold standard for screen readers.

Re: Why none of my books are available on Audible

#77

Post by ChildOfChaos »

lioeters wrote: post #44
ChildOfChaos wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not really a big deal though is it? this person is just being a little weird and stubborn about this. Audible members know what they are getting and choose to do so. Audible DRM is not a big deal, just use this Audible app, some of the arguments made in this article are invalid.

> Sacrificing morals for money. HN user: Not really a big deal though is it? If you've paid attention in the last century or so - it is a big deal in countries all over the world, there is a global political crisis of people sacrificing morals for money.

I agree, that sacrificing morals for money is not a good thing.

What I am saying is that putting your book on audible is not really unethical. It's not such a big deal, people on audible know how the system works and the DRM is fairly irrelevant for most people without tinfoil hats.

Re: Why none of my books are available on Audible

#78

Post by Agingcoder »

tomjen3 wrote: post #33
Agingcoder wrote: post #22

Tangential question (and a serious one, since I'm pretty much baffled by the whole thing) : I don't use audiobooks, since I find them 'slow'. Why do people listen to them instead of reading books? Is it because, say, listening to one while driving is better than not being able to read since you have no time to do so? Or is there a specific pleasure in listening to a book read by someone else?

You can play them at faster than normal speed in the audible player, but I have to ask you a question, do you also find movies slow? For my personal use, I tend to do podcasts/audiobooks in my car and sometimes when doing chores around the apartment. I can't read while I am driving or vacuuming, but neither takes much mental capacity.

Interesting question.

No, I don't find movies slow. The rhythm of a film is the one that was decided by the filmmaker, so it's part of the experience(at least for fiction).

For fiction books, since the book is written, I expect to be able to read it at my own pace, and since I am a very fast reader, I usually end up 'waiting' in an audiobook, without getting anything extra in compensation. In other words, I'm frustrated by the fact that I could read much faster, but can't. I can understand from the previous answers that there are audiobooks/dramas with high production value though. I'll look into this. In such a case, I guess I should view the audiobook as a different object, i.e some kind of adaptation, much like books are turned into films.

Non fiction is completely different - I very much dislike anything audio/video. I need a book, since I want to be able to jump around non linearly (go back , skip, stop, explore this bit/ask a question , etc).

Re: Why none of my books are available on Audible

#80

Post by voxl »

lioeters wrote: post #44
ChildOfChaos wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not really a big deal though is it? this person is just being a little weird and stubborn about this. Audible members know what they are getting and choose to do so. Audible DRM is not a big deal, just use this Audible app, some of the arguments made in this article are invalid.

> Sacrificing morals for money. HN user: Not really a big deal though is it? If you've paid attention in the last century or so - it is a big deal in countries all over the world, there is a global political crisis of people sacrificing morals for money.

You're seriously making mountains out of mole hills here. There is no slippery slope trying to get your content on a platform that consumers actually use, regardless of the ethics of that platforms that's where the users are!
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