For many years now, I’ve been an Audible member, listening to audiobooks
The rub is that one still needs to buy both versions, but it seems that Amazon (which now owns Audible) is offering a considerable discount on the audiobook if you buy the Kindle book first. For example, after buying the Kindle format of The Round House, I was offered the Audible version for just $3.95. Now, paying TWICE for the same book doesn’t make any sense, but the convenience of reading/listening to one book in both my car and my bed: PRICELESS!
Amazon calls this feature Whispersync for Voice. And you will need the free Audible app (iPhone, Android, Kindle Fire) and a free Kindle app or Kindle reader.
Before this announcement, Kindle already had Text-to-Speech. But this was simply a clever parlor trick, and not an enjoyable way to listen to books. If this is what you think of when you think of audiobooks, you really need to try a professional audiobook narrated by actors.
As far as my test run went, it worked exactly as I expected. Keep in mind you need to have Internet access (such as WiFi or cellular) in order for the apps to record/retrieve your last “page.” In the Audible app, I needed to click the sync icon before starting to listen. But this might have been because I was quickly switching between the two. Perhaps if I had more than a few seconds between the two, it would have sync’ed on its own.
Best of all, you can try Whispersync for Voice for FREE with the free Kindle/audiobooks listed here.
The Whispersync for Voice library is currently about 20,000 titles, but I assume this will grow over time.
Anyone else excited by this new Kindle feature?