I have noticed that some kindle books list the ability to purchase the Audible book as well for something like $5. The kindle and audible combo is cheaper than buying the book on Audible alone. The book price has a check mark that states add Audible Narration.
I am not sure if this adds the book to one’s Audible account too (actually i just found where it does state that one can listen on the audible app not sure if it gets added to my audible account).
Has anyone tried doing this?
Here is an example:
NOTE: I like listening to mysteries when I fall asleep so if the book is a bit simple I do not mind :)
I do it all the time. It’s a great feature. Check the narration example on the Amazon (or Audible) website though before you buy a title, a narrator voice you don’t like can really wreck any chances of enjoying the audio book.
The Amazon and Audible accounts are linked (Audible is now owned by Amazon). (I’m assuming you’re using the same account for both, I’m not sure what would happen if your Amazon account and Audible account use different e-mail addresses, for example.) If you have the Kindle book and then buy the audio book narration, either from Amazon’s website or from Audible’s website, you will have the ability to download the audio to the Kindle app or the Audible app (or I presume both). I usually listen to things on the Audible app, since I’m typically doing it while commuting or while walking the dog. But your purchased narration shows up available for download on either app.
The linking between narration playing and then switching over to reading (say for example, you finish your commute and want to switch to reading on a Kindle) works great if you’re using the same device for both – say listening on a tablet and then switching to reading on the same tablet. I have noticed it can get out of sync sometimes when switching from one device to another. So I have had to manually sync things, although that most commonly happens to me when going from audio on one device to audio on another – say switching listening from my cell phone to my iPad (which has better speakers).
Couple more notes.
If you want to take advantage of the discount, you have to buy the Kindle book first. If you get the Audible narration first, you can’t get a discount. But if you do own the Kindle book and it is a Kindle/Audible Whispersync for Voice-Ready combo, the discounted price will show up both on the Amazon website or when you’re surfing the Audible website. There’s no limit to how long the offer is good for. I’ve got Kindle books I owned from before Audible even existed, and I can still get discounted voice narration for them.
The cost of buying the Kindle book combined with the Audible narration is often cheaper than just buying the Audible narration by itself – sometimes a lot, lot cheaper (say $8-10 for the Kindle/Audible combination vs. $30-40 for just the Audible narration by itself). So if you end up surfing the Audible website for books, it’s something to keep in mind. I believe Audible webpages do have explicitly marked on them when there is a discount if you buy the Kindle book first, but it’s easy to miss.
Buying non-whispersync (that’s the Amazon name for the Kindle/Audible combo) audio books on Audible can be quite expensive. And not all books which are on both Amazon and Audible are part of the program (although most of the most popular ones are). I suspect it’s a combination of some publishers are cool with the program and others aren’t, along with the fact that titles that don’t sell that well they may not think are worth doing the synchronization work. Anyway, if you find you’re buying lots of expensive Audible titles, get an Audible subscription, that brings the price of Audible books down from sometimes $30-40 each to $10 each, although it only makes sense if you’re buying at least 12 titles a year. Although as far as I can tell, there’s nothing that prevents you from gifting as many of those 12 titles to friends or family as you want. So if you only listen to 8 per year, you can gift 4 titles to friends and still come out well ahead. The Whispersync books though are usually way under $10 each, so just buy those with cash.
If you are an Audible member, I believe the Whispersync titles default to buy with Credits, even when those Credits are way more expensive than the cash price, so you need to pay attention when you’re checking out. Otherwise you may spend a ~$10 monthly Credit to buy a $1.99 Audio narration.
Let me know if you have any more questions on this. Just as a sign of how much I use this, Audible says I’ve spent over 1 month and 22 days of my life listening to Audible books! And I’ve only been using the App a couple of years.
I plan to only do this through the kindle site since it is cheaper that way. My Amazon and audible accounts are combined. I do not have an active audible subscription at the moment. I tend to purchase 24 books at a time plan for the biggest discount and then wait until those books are listened to before making another big purchase. Usually the books last me quite a while. That is why I like this combined specials because I can get a good price a book here and there if something catches my eye.
