Scribd: Shut Up and Take My Money
EbooksEbooks / reading apps / Scribd / subscription service49 Comments
Completely spazzed out last week upon finding all three volumes of A Novel of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman. I immediately added them to my library and saved the files to my iPad. I never read past the first volume and seeing the second and third waiting for me like manna from heaven made me understand I am truly blessed in this world. It was like seeing a holy relic, except without the holiness, or the relic, and really it was just me being excited. Except more.
Dear Author had an excellent Scribd offer a few months back, giving us a three-month trial instead of one month. I signed up, happy to have access to free books for three months. At least, that was the idea. I planned to read my fill for three months and cancel at the end of April.
Of course, I didn’t take advantage of those three months. In classic Suzanne style, I signed in once, screwed around for maybe ten minutes, and promptly forgot about everything for maybe eight weeks. Have I done this with other website trials? Yup. You may be interested to find out that the majority of people are not responsible trial users. They sign in once, or maybe a few times in the first few days, and then they abandon ship. Grabbing someone’s interest from the beginning is key to converting trials to paying customers. You don’t have much time and they have every reason in the world to leave you, unless you actively give them reasons to stay.
During the third month, seeing my trial was nearly up, I signed in again. I didn’t do it to decide whether I should purchase at the end of my trial (I wasn’t going to) but instead to understand the website and all it does and how it does it, AKA Suzanne’s version of fun. Some people play football or they go to the symphony or they snort crack cocaine; I have this (and reading and Korean television, which is similar to crack cocaine but with beautiful people who don’t kiss a lot). I look at services with monthly subscriptions and I analyze how those services implement their applications and I consider their usage of trials to convert customers, because that is what I do in real life, for fun, but also because someone pays me money. And I judge these services and their trials and their applications and their websites, because judging makes for good times and better products. (Scribd, your support center’s design could use an upgrade. Just saying.)
So as I immersed myself in their design, their wording, and their application’s functionality, I spent a good while skimming through all the nonfiction books I ever wanted to read and looking up literature classics I always intended to read, dutifully adding them to my library now that I had no-holds-barred access. I built an impressive list of books I will probably not bother reading, ever, but by god, they’re in a library with my name on it. I have every intention of scrolling past their cover every so often, and will absorb almost as much value from them as I would by actually reading them. Really. No one’s gonna know. They are beautiful covers.
Nothing blew me away. This is because I hadn’t gone to the Romance section yet, even though romance consistently accounts for about 85% of my reading each year. I suppose I am used to sites not having a great selection of romance, so I didn’t bother. I didn’t want to be frustrated by a few token bestsellers, a tiny smattering of authors I actually like, and a whole lot of amateur hour novels I will never, ever waste my time reading. Thusly one sums up Amazon Prime’s offerings. Why would Scribd be any different?
But my friends, they are different. Scribd is where you want to go if you’re a romance reader. I finally clicked on the Romance section, searched for a few authors, and my mind pretty much stopped working. Time itself stopped working as I stared at the most superb backlist collection I’d ever seen.
I got out my faithful Books I Have Read spreadsheets from years past and looked up author after author after author, opening a tab in my browser for each author’s collection, seeing what each had. Once I had about twenty tabs open in one window, I stopped opening tabs and sorted through the current authors and added some of their books to my library and closed their tab when finished. And when I was done closing tabs, I opened about twenty more authors’ pages and started all over again. I did this for hours. I am not kidding. This is my idea of free time well spent. It made me so, so, so happy.
I don’t know if you understand what this means to me. I will try to explain.
They have 59 listings for Johanna Lindsey and 57 are available in full. Fifty. Seven. I could be immersed for two to three straight months in old school, bodice ripping, historically inaccurate, convenient plotting, glorious Johanna Lindsey. Reality does not exist in a Johanna Lindsey book; only happiness and busty chests and a touch of misogyny. It is beautiful. I have read all 57 books previously but that doesn’t matter. It is time to read them all again (except Silver Angel; yuck).
Oh my pretties, I have such plans for you…
They have an excellent collection of Sarah Mayberry novels. I’ve long wanted to read everything she wrote but didn’t fancy paying $3.99 about forty times. They have 27 of her novels available. That alone sold me on Scribd. Why did I not check the romance section two months ago? I am an idiot. Of course, rather than read a new-to-me Mayberry, I just started rereading my favorite of hers. That’s all I did last Friday night after work: reread Her Best Worst Mistake.
I am currently finishing a Karen Hawkins series I started…um, maybe eight years ago without finishing. I think I got the first from the library? And then forgot the rest existed? Anyway, I’m on the third book in the series and it’s decent. Scribd is where you go to complete all the series you intended to complete but never did. Because they’re right there. So many of them.
I eventually drifted from romance to fantasy. I sucked in a heavy breath when I saw they had Garth Nix. When I saw they had Dan Simmons, I yelled out loud, “Dan Simmons!!” as one does when one has read enough Dan Simmons to understand one should read everything Dan Simmons wrote. I had a huge smile on my face as I saw all the Kristine Kathryn Rusch novels they offered in full. A lot. About 300. She can’t be human.
I clicked on Comics and stared in awe. If you read comics, especially Marvel, go to Scribd and click on Comics. You are going to get excited.
This is not your average reading subscription. It’s not a copout like Amazon Prime (which I had for two years and maybe twice used for books). It’s a subscription for actual readers. Too many reading subscriptions are run by corporations that haven’t made enough deals with enough publishers, because it’s a new concept and not one well implemented by many. Naw, Scribd didn’t have absolutely everyone on my list, but they had a damned lot of them. That might be because I am hopelessly addicted to Avon Historical Romance and they have a deal with HarperCollins, so their selection suits my taste. The books I actually want to read are there. Books released in the last year and even in the last month are available (sometimes).
Another highlight of Scribd is their mobile applications. I usually read on my iPad mini, the most wonderful e-reading device ever, but I spend a fair amount of time on my iPhone as well. Somehow it’s much less antisocial when you are around people to furtively read a book on your phone than to take out your iPad and give up all sense of manners. Seriously, there are shades of bad manners, and reading on your iPhone is less harsh than going all out with an iPad. I am an expert at this. You could be checking Facebook. It’s a totally acceptable way to spend a party.
It is also easier to walk down the sidewalk and read from a phone than it is to read from a tablet. Also, people will think you are less weird because they don’t know that you’re reading a novel while walking a few blocks to the bakery. They think you’re being an obnoxious modern person checking social media or SMS or Google Maps, and for some reason all of those are more comprehensible to bystanders than the semi-dangerous act of reading a book while walking down the street (I don’t read while crossing streets; I promise) or down a hall corridor. I do it all the time and have since grade school, when I used actual hard copy books to do it.
And so, because I am a highly mobile reader, I have tried a whole lot of reading apps in pursuit of the perfect mobile reading experience. I still haven’t found it. Scribd doesn’t have it either, but they are decent; at least as decent as the Kindle app, and that’s always been my favorite.
I am fond of the Vintage font. Also, I can’t understand anyone who reads with black backgrounds. Don’t your eyes hurt??
Scribd’s app navigation isn’t as good as Kindle’s. It’s convoluted and not the most intuitive. There are too many varied dimensions of navigation to understand all at once. It’s highly functional, yes, but you have to think about it at first. There is also no practical search function to search your own library, which should be a given. The search function searches all of Scribd’s books. Good luck finding the book you want in your library when you have hundreds saved. This is a serious design flaw and it needs to be corrected.
Still, once you’re reading, all’s well. There are enough fonts for everyone to be happy (six). I do wish you could highlight in more than one color, like you can on the Kindle app. That said, there are many good things about their app. As said, you can search the Scribd website offerings from the app and add new books to your library immediately, something Amazon doesn’t quite understand they should include. Then again, you’d have to purchase the Amazon books, whereas Scribd’s books just go straight into your library without paying a cent more, because you’re already paying a subscription fee. It’s a different use case and more vital for Scribd to have than Amazon. It just makes everything come together, though. It feels more useful than the Kindle app.
The multi-device syncing functionality is also better than the Kindle app. It’s more reliable and usually happens automatically, which is a relief, because I hate having to approve the syncing. I switch between my iPhone and iPad multiple times a day and it’s an absolute pain to deal with on the Kindle app. With Kindle, the app doesn’t always sense it needs syncing, or it’ll sync to the wrong place. Scribd got it right all times but once, when I spent maybe two minutes reading on my phone and then switched back. In comparison, Kindle doesn’t sense that a sync is needed about 40% of the time, so Scribd wins hands down.
I was more than pleased with the iOS applications and the website itself, though the main page makes it highly annoying to access the footer if you want it. You need to wait for them to auto-load more selections about five times before it gives up and lets you actually see the footer. Bad design. Their navigation is as convoluted as on their application; they need a much more straightforward and intuitive menu strategy for better user experience.
Also, biggest drawback: Because I sign in through Facebook, it automatically added a ton of my Facebook friends to my account and I guess me to theirs. My Social Feed shows all the things I’ve rated, added to my library, all the authors I’ve followed…and I couldn’t figure out a way to turn this off. I don’t want anyone knowing exactly what I’m reading. I’ll share it if I want them to know. This is not cool. I had to disconnect my profile from Facebook, meaning I now have to go through the torture of actually typing in an email and password while signing in rather than just clicking the Facebook button. The two should not be contingent on each other, or there should be an option not to share.
Still, though there are many different areas Scribd needs to develop further, I feel like a subscription with them means I will never be out of a TBR list, and that’s where you’ve legitimately hooked me. $8.99 a month is roughly the cost of one book, or two or three if you’re going for the cheaper self-published books. I totally read more than three books a month. A lot more. Now I have a resource that can effectively deliver whatever I’m craving.
I hope they keep improving their applications and their website, and that they expand their privacy options, but I’m still sold. Scribd converted me to a paying customer entirely through their expansive content offerings. Everything else they did right was the proverbial icing (note to self: must make homemade icing, no cake needed). With their comprehensive selection of books that I’d be reading whether I had a Scribd subscription or not, it was an easy choice to make.
Yes, you described it exactly! I missed out on the three months free but have been binging on Harlequins with the one month. I haven’t come out of the romance section yet. But as you mentioned Johanna Lindsey, I might need to go indulge in a glom. Hopefully, the science fiction/fantasy section will not be disappointing. I feel like it will definitely be worth it to keep it. I know there have been books I wanted to try but simply could no rationalize the purchase because I was not sure about the author or had been burned.
Scribd is glorious. I basically stopped my KU subscription after trying out Scribd. And the audiobooks!!! Oh my Lord. I am halfway through the Game of Thrones audiobook and loving it.
Scribd is the best for me and so many mm books -so many and more and more publishers don’t delay the new releases for that long, I think Samhain pretty much does it the next day. Love it.
Yes, yes, all of this. And now that they’ve added so many romance audiobooks from authors I love, not only am I sad to have already purchased so many from Audible, but I’m seriously considering suspending my Audible membership indefinitely.
Pamela Aiden’s Darcy books are on Scribd?!!! Okay, that’s it. I just got a new, slightly bigger phone, which I’m noticing I don’t mind reading on. And since you pointed out all the ways to sneak in extra reading using that phone. ..Scribd, here I come!
Does anyone from the UK have any experience of using scribd? From searching it appears quite a lot of books had geographical restrictions, but the information I can find seems quite old so wondered if it had improved?
I’m still in my free three month subscription and I’m loving it! My plan was read as much as possible and then cancel as well. I have been reading a ton on Scribd but instead of reading exclusively Scribd, I’ve been switching with books I already own on kindle. I soon realized I wasn’t going to get nearly every thing I wanted to read and listen to done in three months. I changed the plan to cancel after the free trial then ask my family for a gift subscription for my birthday present about a month later. Now I’m probably just going to keep for that month in-between as well.
They have so many backlists of authors that I love and have been planning on eventually checking out everything they’ve written. Now I can do it at a much better price.
Also, I listen to audiobooks at work. I will say the iPod app is not great for listening to audio. I just downloaded an update that was supposed to fix a lot of the listening problems, like if you pause in the middle of the chapter it either skipping to the next chapter or going back to the beginning of the chapter when you resume listening, but it didn’t seem to make a difference. I just deleted and redownloaded the app hoping that will help. The Android app is better but doesn’t have the option of speeding up the narration. Despite it kind of being a pain, the selection of audiobooks is great and just got better. They now have the Mercy Thompson and Alpha and Omega series by Patricia Briggs on audio. I was able to get the latest Simone St. James and Eloisa James books within weeks of them coming out (6 days for the Eloisa James’s one).
I’ve also checked out books that I wouldn’t have otherwise. Usually they’re ones that I’ve read good reviews for but just aren’t typically my thing. Maybe there’s a plot device I’m not typically fond of or it’s an NA book which aren’t my favorite. Most of these books have been pleasant surprises. A few have been misses but I don’t feel as bad about that when the book is just part of a subscription and not one I specifically bought.
The biggest problem with Scribd is that my already huge to-read list has gotten even more out of control!
@mharvey816- I’ve decided that after my next credit comes in and I use it, I’m canceling my audible subscription. I was already using credits less and doing whispersync deals more and I can still do that without the subscription. So I’ll be paying less for Scribd and getting much more use out of it.
I’m a little terrified to start a subscription. I get a little obsessive and fear I’ll starve myself to death and stop working or sleeping.
On reading with the black background, I do that at night because I wear blue light blocking lenses at night for my sleep disorder, and with those the white background is atrocious. But it does hurt my eyes and head if the writing is white, so I prefer when you can change the font color too.
This is my experience exactly. I signed up for the 3 month trial and I’ve read (checks library) 63 flipping books on Scribd since then. Mostly romance, lots of m/m. I fell down the rabbit hole HARD! Someone mentioned that there is an annual subscription at $49.99 a year so I’ll be switching to that at the end of my free trial. Worth.every.penny!
For the person who’s asking, I’m in the UK and there are occasional books not available, but I’m certainly not having any problems finding enough to read.
One of the things I would really like to know is how does reading on Scribd support your favorite authors. I’ve discovered some amazing new authors and I like to put my money where my mouth is, so I always wonder if I should buy the book as well.
@Nikki: Yes, exactly! When I’m not sure how an author’s book will be, I don’t want to buy it. I have had good experiences with authors and I still won’t purchase their books because they’re touch and go on their greatness. With Scribd, I can try them out without guilt of having wasted the money. Also, the scifi/fantasy selection is very decent. I do wish they’d sign some sort of agreement with Tor; then all my reading days would be happy.
@Sirius: I am definitely going to start hunting down the M/M selections they have. I also really want to find some decent F/F historicals but I keep coming up blank. M/M and F/F historicals in general are really lacking. I am all optimism, considering their vast stock. It’s a great opportunity to try out some unknown authors and see how they go.
@Michele Mills: YES, ALL THREE OF FITZWILLIAM DARCY, GENTLEMAN’S BOOKS BY PAMELA AIDEN. I was squeeing like mad. Best P&P book adaptation ever, as far as I’m concerned (at least among the historicals).
@CelineB: Thank you for talking about the audiobooks options with Scribd’s apps. I’m a touch hard of hearing so I never use audiobooks; I’d always be rewinding and feeling like a moron. I’m glad someone else mentioned how they fare. :)
@Erin Burns: Thank you, that makes total sense why someone would use a darker background. IT ALL BECOMES CLEAR.
@Alanis: Scribd credits the authors when you read their book:
http://support.scribd.com/entries/64067067-How-do-authors-benefit-from-Scribd-s-premium-membership-program-
Also, thank you for mentioning the annual fee! I didn’t realize they had that option. I’ll definitely be taking it. What a fantastic deal.
@Suzanne:
You’re welcome. I thought it was ridiculous too before I had to start wearing these stupid glasses at night.
And anyone got a link for an annual fee, as I can’t find one, and I’d love to get this subscription at least as gifts for family members who’ve got more restraint than I do.
Finally, I really wish google (or someone) would get on the ball and make an android e-ink device so I could just read all the books on eink. I’ve looked at Onyx but fear updates rendering it obsolete too quickly. Should a reliable android eink be sold, and I don’t show up again, assume I’ve purchased the scribd subscription and am slowly starving to death. Perhaps send it the calvary and an intervention.
I had to email them for the link, you have to sign out of Scribd. I still haven’t figured out how to switch. I’ll have to email them again.
http://www.scribd.com/archive/plans
I am totally addicted to korean dramas as well. :-) They are a lot like romance novels, just less sex.
I’m there for audiobooks and hoping to get my mom hooked on them as well. She’s a machinist and listens to books while she works. She could go through two books a day if she wanted to! Audible would just be too expensive.
I recently found some great books by African American authors, so yay.
That yearly subscription at that price was a deal just for cybermonday (if that’s what it’s called).
I live in Belgium and books that were never available to me due to geographical restrictions are more often well than not available in scribd.
The problem with the audiobooks is in my experience that you have to download every chapter seperately and can’t seem to download the whole book in one go.
I can finally finish series that I found too expensive on kindle or kobo. You are so lucky to have an all english books library. Our libraries have a very limited english section and the translations are awfull (too many grammmatical errors).
So even with it’s baby-diseases I love Scribd.
If you have a problem they answer within a day, if you have a suggestion they don’t really seem to answer ever.
I just finished my three month trial subscription, and being me, I decided to track the dollar value of the books I read to make sure a subscription would be worth the price. I read $249 worth of books. Definitely worth the money.
I agree with those who’ve been impressed by the number of m/m titles available. I didn’t even bother to look at Scribd when people first started talking about it, because like Suzanne I’ve had a hard time finding romance I want to read on a subscription service, let alone something niche like m/m. And my library has an excellent digital collection, including m/m, so why pay extra for a service when my library does it better? But the two collections fit nicely, with not a lot of overlap. Between the two, I’ve been able to find just about anything I want to read. I read a lot of Riptide and Samhain, and both have been very good about releasing new titles quickly.
As far as finding books in your Scribd library, have you tried creating collections? I made one to corral my challenge books, and poking through 20 titles is certainly a lot faster than trying to find something on my main library page, with Scribd’s horrible, poky scrolling. And you can make the collections private,.
There are really only two technical problems (other than the annoying scrolling) that I’ve had. One, books disappearing from my library or collections. I know sometimes books are pulled from Scribd, but this doesn’t seem to be the case. If I search for the book I usually find it, and then have to add it to my library again. They’re just dropping off my list for some reason. The other is the labeling of books that are set to expire. The app on my Kindle Fire marks books that are scheduled to expire on the library page. The desktop version doesn’t do this- you have to open each book’s page individually to see if it’s scheduled to expire. It would be really helpful if this was easy to see from the library page on the desktop version, too.
OK, and I have a third technical issue. When a book is scheduled to expire, I can’t open it from the library page on the Kindle. The app always stops working. I have to start those books on the desktop, and once I’m a couple pages in, the app will recognize it and let me keep reading.
You hot the nail on the head. I think Scribd is wonderful, too. I also wish I could search within my library.
I did a bit of an experiment — every time I read a review and thought I might buy the book, I checked to see if it was on Scribd. Often it was. If it wasn’t, often the author was (holding out hope that the new book would be there at some point. I saved the subscription cost in a day.
Thank you DA for the offer which got me hooked! And now there are Penguin Random House audiobooks, too…
Runaways? They have RUNAWAYS? Oh, god, my TBR pile.
I just started my Scribd free trial this week after spending a few days searching their catalog. I’m so impressed with the depth of books available in so many different categories and think I will almost certainly be signing on for the paid version when the trial ends. (I was able to use the DearAuthor code for the free 3-month trial. Was that not supposed to work now?)
I also wish that there was an unaffiliated eink reader that could do these subscription services. I much prefer to read on my Kindle Paperwhite, and that was really holding me back from trying Scribd.
I tried it and realized that unless I was missing something I couldn’t read in any other way but on the computer which doesn’t work for me. I have a Windows phone and a Kobo and I load my Kobo through Calibre, and books onto my phone through Dropbox (Calibre updates to it automatically).
AFAIK (and I would love to be told I’m wrong) I can’t do this with Scribd.
@Suzanne – re historical f/f – try Patience and Sarah by Isabel Miller. It looks like it’s on scribd. It was published in the 70s, it’s not technically genre romance or ff, but it’s really good, it has a central love story between two women and satisfying hea. It’s set in 19th C Connecticut and upstate New York. It’s loosely based on a real life couple.
@Suzanne – couple more recs (not to hijack the thread). For mm historicals, try Alex Beecroft, Tammara Allen or Josh Lanyon (he has a huge back list in many sub genres, including historicals – Snowball in Hell is set in 1940s California and is quite good).
@Becky- I also have been keeping track of how much I’ve saved because I’m obsessive like that. I’ve had the subscription about 7 months and gotten $477.71 of use out of it. That’s counting audiobooks as what a credit on audible costs ($14.95 for the subscription I have) or what the audible price is if it’s less than the credit price. That was $297.04 of my savings. There were a few things I didn’t count such as The Bridgertons: Happily Ever After by Julia Quinn because I had read every novella in it except one and under no circumstances would I have paid $8 to read that one novella and a few books I owned on kindle but listened to the audiobook from Scribd at work instead of reading.
@Eleanor T The $47.99 annual price is still available for me at the link I posted above, but we are in different countries so that may have an effect.
I guess it all depends what genre you’re looking at. In 2 months, I’ve read over 60 books, I have about 100 more saved and I think I’ve looked up less than 10 that were listed but not available to me. However, I have also looked up lots of books that just weren’t there at all so there are gaps.
As someone said above, I’m frequently impressed at how quickly new releases are showing up as well. I’m very impressed by Scribd and would recommend it enthusiastically, with the caveat that one should check that the availability matches your reading tastes. But if your reading tastes are similar to mine (SFF, romance, mm, mysteries) and you gobble books at an unaffordable rate, it is well worth the investment.
I knew when I read this article it was going to bad- from the minute I laughed out loud at “…and reading and Korean television, which is similar to crack cocaine but with beautiful people who don’t kiss a lot” to “Now I have a resource that can effectively deliver whatever I’m craving”. Yep- BAD. SO I thought if the DA code for three free months no longer worked, that would be a sign to turn back. #$%!- the code worked and now I am Alice taking the red pill (blue pill?)- whatever. I may never, ever, ever, come up for air. No one but myself (and Suzanne) to blame!
Here’s the problem I have with subscription services: I already own a lot of the books on there! I ended up canceling it because it wasn’t doing me any good to read books ON THERE when I already own it. I almost stayed due to their Tony Hillerman collection (mystery fan over here) and the ton of Agatha Christie I found on there made me wish I hadn’t bought so many of them. I plan to go back to Scribd, one day.
@Keishon:
In a weird sort of way, that’s sort of a plus in my book. Because I’m a serious re-reader, and there are a ton of books that I’d love to re-read that I borrowed from a friend or the library etc, that not a dime from me ever reached their hands, since I can’t afford to buy everything that catches my fancy. So this seems like a cheap, convenient way to compensate them in some small part. But it does make me wonder, how does scribd treat re-reads? Does only the first read apply for compensation, or do they count every separate time an individual reads a book as a compensatable event no matter how many times they read a book?
I love Scribd. However it really annoys me how so many books are not available to me because of geographical restrictions. I live in Australia, and many of the big five publisher books aren’t available to me, including all those Harlequin books (aside from Carina). I realise this is more a publisher problem than Scribd’s, but it irks me that I’m paying the same fee for fewer books.
This means I’m reading more books from smaller publishers and indie authors, so that’s good for them. I’ve read all of Sarina Bowen’s Ivy Years books and enjoyed every one of them.
I started with Scribd back in November and love, love, love it. I bought a Kindle fire because I didn’t want to read on my iPad or phone all the time, but I do still miss the kindle paper white and wish that had been a possibility.
For Australian readers: we’re stuck with those same complicated book distribution agreements that narrow our options in getting any content, but Scribd is still worth it for the romance reader. Sadly, all the Harelquins have disappeared – we had access to them until about mid-March when the publisher highlighted that this was a region error. I felt the loss keenly because I’d suddenly rediscovered how awesome Harlequin Presents are, and had been gobbling them up.
There’s still plenty to keep me going, I’m not hugely into audio books but have used them a little and it’s a good range. I feel I’m getting more than value for money out of the subscription. The other thing to note is that the for purchase content also isn’t available in Australia.
It’s your job to look at sights and say what’s wrong with them??? Seriously? That’s like one of my dream jobs. (I’m in a job I hate and can’t get out of it, so I’m a bit frustrated.) Feel like crying now.
SCRIBD is like chocolate coated candy Christmas…especially if you like Harlequin Presents cause there is a about a gazillion of them on there. HP Heaven.
I first heard about the three-month free trial from SBTB, and when I first saw it, I remembered hearing some less-than-stellar reviews so I didn’t think to go for it. Then I saw where they had audiobooks, I decided to check it out. About an hour later, I’d signed up for the trial and found about two dozen audiobooks, along with all those lovely Lisa Kleypas and Julia Quinn and Eloisa James books that I meant to reread…I wondered if I could go on a three-month binge and then cancel, but then Scribd announced that it was adding Random House Penguin audiobooks to its selection, and the next thing I know, I’ve got about five years’ worth of audiobooks to listen to in my library.
While the set-up drives me batty sometimes, the selection is amazing. I haven’t decided whether or not I’m ready to cut my ties to Audible, because there are audiobooks at Audible which Scribd doesn’t have. But having a Scribd subscription cut my wish list way, way down.
Yes, yes, yes, to all of this! I signed up for the 3 month trial at SBTB and have been devouring books ever since. And audiobooks to boot! I think I spent the entire weekend glomming random Kristen Ashley backlist material. I’ve accessed travel guides to help me plan an upcoming vacation. I only wish there was a better way to browse. Still, I am loving Scribd and will definitely be paying for a membership when my free trial expires. Totally worth it.
I too will share the Scrbd love. I was somewhat skeptical when I signed up, but the audiobooks alone have more than convinced me that I will be continuing the service after my three-month trial is finished. Because of Scrbd and my public library, my wallet is now one happy camper.
I appreciate the info but my hang-up with regards to Scribd is that (unfortunately) most of my go-to authors are Penguin/Random House and none of them are yet available except maybe audio (which I already own and which is strange since they are Penguin Audiobooks). Also, a quick search of authors I’ve been interested in trying but haven’t yet invested in didn’t have selections available in any format. It may be because I’m more heavily a UF/F and suspense/thriller reader now than romance but out of more than a dozen author searches, only 2 had any selection of value. Scribd is clearly not yet for me.
@Alanis:
Thanks for mentioning the annual membership and giving the link (I couldn’t find the annual option anywhere)! This just got me signed back up for scribd :)
Um, audiobooks. I’m in my third month and have a library of to reads that is just ridiculously long :) But the value in this one for me is the audio books. A gagillion–of lots of good stuff. I commute a ways for work and have been averaging about 1 audiobook a week. That right there is worth the entry fee. The audio part of the ios mobile app can be a bit buggy at times, but when it is working well, it really rocks. And I love the breadth of the selections so I can switch from a Suzanne Brockman romancey/thriller to something like Shit My Dad Says and laugh hysterically to myself in the car.
Hah hah! This is exactly what happened to me. I thought I’d just check it out, and then after a month of reading stuff, I’ve turned into that annoying person who tells everyone around me about Scribd and sounds like a sales ad.
On the DBSA Podcast, Jane mentioned that a bunch of Christina Lauren’s older stuff is on Scribd for free, and you might want to check that out if you’re hesitant to pay for “Sweet Filthy Boy” at it’s current price-point. And I did, and backlisted her in the space of a week, and ended up paying for her new stuff because I liked her so much. They’ve got a bunch of older Laura Florand, and Penny Reid (all of which are super fun contemporaries). I backlisted a bunch of Charlotte Stein stuff as well (who is adorable and absolutely filthy). There’s a ton of stuff I’d like to re-read on there, too.
My husband is nostalgia-reading a ton of BattleTech books. We’re both all over the older Marvel titles, which is letting me read-along with the podcast “Rachel & Miles X-Plain the X-Men.” Dudes. I haven’t even signed up for Netflix, and I’m never getting rid of Scribd.
@Becky:
The books that I’ve had “disappear” from my Scribd library are the oldest ones in a large library. All of the books in my library show up on the website app, but the iOS app (at least) seems to have some kind of size limitation and only shows a certain number of the most recent..
Those of you that are sharing with a spouse, how well does that work? Anything to watch out for? Does it try to sync what you’re reading to the other person’s device?
If I could read them on my ereader I’d get my money’s worth even if I only read a few books a month on the app. I think it’s great for those who like to read on phones and tablets. Like Jane Davitt above, I read on my Kobo reader which I load via Calibre and I listen to audiobooks on my iPod nano which I load through iTunes, I can’t do those things with Scribd so the app is not for me. I have plenty to read so I really shouldn’t feel that upset about it but part of me wants ALL THE BOOKS and has a bit of a sad over it. (I’ll recover.)
Scribd has totally won me over during my 2 month SBTB free trial. My only issue is that I really hate reading on my phone/iPad 2. I mean, I’m still doing it but I don’t like it. I miss the eInk from my nook – but luckily have a huge purchased TBR that I can use for beach reading, etc.
@De: I shared with my son once, and it seems to sync by device, so his book remained open on his computer and mine on my iPad mini. I could see the progress bar on his activity, and, in theory, he mine.
Does anyone know if there is still a valid 3 month free trial code? I missed the DA promotion awhile back; and I just tried using the SBTB’s code from February and it was invalid. :-(
@Amy: ScribdLovesHarlequin is supposed to be valid through Oct. http://harlequinblog.com/2014/10/fall-in-love-again-and-again-and-again-with-harlequin-and-scribd/
@Becky: Thank you!!
I use to think that scribd is fabulous because their romance books collection simply delicious.
But the last two weeks they are all gone, I couldn’t find any decent Avon Books there anymore. I just wonder if this happened because I live outside the USA? Do you guys who lives in the US still get their wonderful collection?
Scribd said they are doing some technical works, but almost all their fabulous romance books have gone.
Technical work, really??
I’ve been testing Scribd for the past few days and I’m already in love. The selection is great, even if they mostly have books that have been out for a few years. I’m catching up on so many books I’ve been meaning to read – and they have all the books I need to read for school – and I can save my money for new titles.