Scribd subscribers will surely have a pleasant surprise when they find out how much more they will get for their money starting this week – the digital library has decided to add an audiobooks section to its digital library, offering its users access to over 30,000 titles, The Verge writes. At the same time the fee of their subscription remains the same – $8.99 a month. The offer sounds great, especially for those already subscribed to the service, but it has its limits – there is currently just one major publisher directly involved in this service.
With this move, Scribd – famed as the Netflix for ebooks – starts a direct competition with Audible, a provider of over 150,000 audiobooks that users can download and listen to as they like. Audible’s subscription is a tad more expensive – $14.95 a month – but it has the advantage (besides the much larger offer) that users can keep their downloaded audiobooks even after their subscription expires. Besides, it has more partners, while Scribd only has one major publisher on board, Harper Collins (at least for now). This doesn’t change the fact that Scribd’s deal just got much sweeter with the inclusion of audiobooks in its offer, giving its competitors a run for their money.
According to Scribd CEO Trip Adler, audiobooks is a $1 billion a year industry. The addition of audiobooks to Scribd’s offer was one of the most popular requests, Adler said, and they were glad to offer their users what they consider “a natural extension of Scribd’s existing content offering”. The company has already rolled out audiobook support for their Android and Kindle Fire apps, and the update for iOS users is also on the way. If all else fails, users can still listen to their audiobook of choice through the Scribd website.