Monday, May 4, 2020

Audiobooks on Kindle Unlimited

Did you know if you have a Kindle Unlimited account you can listen to free audiobooks?  It's true.  Kinda.  Barely.

First off, there's not very many of them.  Not every title on Audible is available via Kindle Unlimited.  Of the authors we like around here, I was able to find some (but not all) of Richie Tankersley Cusick and Diane Hoh's young adult horror books, a handful of Richard Laymon titles, some Jack Ketchum, some Lee Goldberg, and the Saint novels.

Then there's almost no good way to search for them.  The closest you can start with is searching through this link, but that just narrows it down to books that might have free audiobooks.

You'll see a lot of titles that have a headphone symbol next to the Kindle Unlimited logo.  I don't know what that symbol means, but it doesn't mean there's a free audiobook to KU subscribers.  I've seen it next to books that don't have an audiobook version, and some with audiobooks don't have the symbol.

After being misled by some blogs and Amazon support posts, I went crazy thinking that all of Prologue's books had available free audiobooks, only to crash when that number dwindled to none.

The only way to tell if a title come with a free audiobook to KU subscribers is to look for where you usually click to buy.  If you have a KU membership, instead of saying "Read for Free" it says "Read and Listen for Free".


If you're a KU member and click there, in addition to getting the ebook, an Audible version appears in your Audible library automatically, and is taken out when the book is returned.  You don't need to be an Audible subscriber to access the audiobook, and you can sign into Audible with your Amazon credentials.  Some ereaders will also have an option to click at the bottom of the page, though this may take you to an Audible store link that charges or asks to sign up.

A weird quirk - if you already own an ebook, Amazon won't let you check it out for Kindle Unlimited, and I can't find a workaround to get free access to the audiobook I would have gotten for checking it out.  Clicking on the icon on my tablet just takes me to a buy page.

A disappointment, but Kindle Unlimited was pretty rubbish when it started, too.  I've come around on KU, mainly because there are constant free trials.  By the time my current trial ends, I would have gotten free KU for 5 out of 6 months.

There's currently a deal for free a free KU trial - if you want to give a free KU trial a go, it's risk free - you can cancel any time after signing up and the trial still runs to the end, so if you're one of those who forgets about when trials end, you can cancel early and still use it.

And use my affiliate link, so I don't feel I wasted my entire afternoon for the handful of titles I'll end up enjoying.

Kindle Unlimited Membership Plans

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