Edit: A couple times I've said eBook while I actually meant Audiobook. I've learned that Spotify has a 15 hour limit per month for their free 'included in premium' audiobooks. However these are the two books I listened to for free, and even rounding up to 13 hours it doesn't make sense, unless they count accidental chapter skips which weren't actually listened to. But it's clear now that I know about the 15 hour limit, that they are not counting the time listening to paid audiobooks.
First book I listened to for free:
Second book I listened to for free:
OG post:
I purchased 3 eBooks in the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy series (2 came free) and I'm on the final book. 20 minutes left in the last book and this is what Spotify tells me.
I'm over the edge now. I've been putting it off too long. I have a nice NUC I purchased about a year ago.
I'm tech inclined, 20 years of hobbyism, know the linux command line well. Work in IT consulting. But I'm busy. Very busy, and unmotivated to do things like hours of research and toying with settings getting things to work, if I ever have the time.
But this is the start of my new personal revolution.
I'll read the wiki and have read about Sonarr, etc, and I also want movies and shows, but is there anything specifically for eBooks? Looks like Readarr is my best bet? Stripping the DRM of already purchased (and free with Spotify 'Premium') books to share on a seedbox is also something I'm willing to take requests on. Is there a way to rip from Spotify if you have a premium account? And what's the best Android eBook reader (the last 3-4 I tried sucked with pirated eBooks)?
I know I'm sounding like a noob asking everything to be handed to me right now, but I am willing to put in the research and welcome and highly appreciate anyone with tips to point me in the right directions.
Full Explanation:
Spotify introduced Audiobooks to their platform in November 2023:
OP purchased book 1 and can listen to it all they want. They did not purchase book 2 or 3, and also listened to other audiobooks, putting them over the 15 hour limit.
Key Facts:
That said, stop paying for audiobooks like a chump and get a library card.
All the free audiobooks you want from your library using hoopla and Libby.
I tried this and the waiting list for anything remotely worth a damn was months long. I just went and pirated the thing instead.
Has your experience been different?
I experience that, but you should get more library cards.
Hoopla has better availability but a worse app. Libby can have long wait lists but I just keep a queue going. There's always a good list of available now audiobooks to keep me going until my holds are available.
The more you use the library the better it is. My partner reads almost a hundred books a year. She's voracious. She reads them almost exclusively through the library. With Libby you're able to juggle holds easily so that new books are always coming up when you finish the last one. If it comes back too early you just tell it to wait.
I particularly seem to be into stuff that my community isn't feverishly trying to rent. That helps haha. Traditional paper books too, I could keep renewing them for a stupid amount of time because they didn't end up on hold. Found out the limit was 255 renewals until they suddenly dropped it to like 10 max. :(
But sadly all the good nerd stuff like R.A. Salvatore books or Discworld always has queues, yeah.
I can get almost anything from my library as long as it's not the brand new hotness. Occasionally there'll be a book here or a book there that's got one person waiting in line, but our maximum checkout time is a week. I pull the book down rip the audio from it and free up my hold the same day.
What tools do you use to rip the audio? I’m just wondering so I don’t accidentally do it.
You could go as far as virtual audio cables and audacity. No matter what changes they can't stop that.
But if your library supports OD, go dig up the old PC app for OD. When you download the book to start listening to it it decrypts it as it throws it onto the drive.
Some books seem to have some weird duplicated audio here and there is a coffee protection method. Like there's some secret M3U somewhere that skips around when it plays it, but most stuff comes out clean.
If you can't get it to come out with the app use one of the virtual audio cable style applications wire the output into a line-in for audacity and just rerecord the whole thing compress it down. You lose individual chapters as files I don't really pay attention to the chapters I'm on I care about the total distance to the book and being able to pick up where I left off. I suppose if you were trying to do some kind of hybrid read and listen back and forth it would be more useful to have the chapter numbers.
Fick libby, the company thatade it doesn't care about its employees
That's most companies buddy.
That's an awful lot of words for "Spotify is bullshit."
I mean, seems like this is way better for listening to audiobooks than when they had no audiobooks whatsoever
Important info here. Definitely not the impression I got from the OP.
So OP is complaining about being limited by the amount of free books OP can listen to? Sounds fair to me, these things cost money to make, and websites cost money to run.
How is an audiobook different from any other piece of audio?
Licensing costs
Just look how much this little machine is costing the music industry! https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/12/this-season-a-notorious-pirate-gives-the-music-industry-an-expensive-gift/
Lol, but seriously... licensing costs the license holders nothing... but it does costs spotify something.
Yeah, Spotify can't just go around pirating audiobooks.
Dang youre right there's probably a huge difference when you calculate it by the second (certainly cheaper).
Sure whatever you say step corp-bro
Ok, thats funny. But for real, what I'm lightly annoyed by is the way they seem to be using the 15 hours of audiobooks as a sort of free-trial to get you to buy more credits, and also how much podcasts and audiobooks are pushed even for those of us who exclusively use spotify for music. On the other hand, if you use the feature, it cost you nothing additional to use up to that 15 hours, or those free books, its strictly a value add.
Weird way to say "just torrent the audio book"
Oh man, I did the hard work (it was easy) of reading some rules and answering some questions via irc to get an invite to MAM and wow is that a treasure-trove of ebooks and audiobooks.
dude yes it’s great but remove the name please
Why, are even names flagged in some way? MAM is amazing, but if I have to never talk about it to protect it more, I will.
it’s mostly to keep the name out of popular use
oink
what.cd
etc all gone, much sadness
Puts pitchfork away
Thank you for the context.
Reading is hard when doing several hour long commutes... Audiobooks also can enhance the book as some are edited to cut out parts which really don't contribute. A good editor can make or break a book. I do like reading, but there are times where audiobooks not only provide better experience, they are also the most time efficient as can be enjoyed during other tasks.
My library's website lets you check out audiobooks. Is that not common?
That's cool. Ours doesn't, but it is a rather tiny place and not those fancy libraries with 3D printers and stuff...
See my other comment: https://lemmy.world/comment/7069535
You're making disingenuous assumptions when you say I listened to other audiobooks. I have only listened to this series. purchased 3, and listened to 2 of the free (premium) books. I did not listen to any other books. There were a couple times it skipped a chapter with an accidental scroll, and I had to scroll back, but I didn't actually listen so it shouldn't count.
I wasn't aware of the 15 hour limit but of course I am now as it's been pointed out many times in this thread. I didn't even know they had audiobooks until they started showing up on the opening screen of Spotify. I got hooked listening to the Steven Fry narrated OG book and then went to buy the next 3 and the last book in the series was also included in premium so I listened without buying. Still, 13 hours (which makes up for any skipping) is not 15 hours, so there's either a bug or they intentionally count unlistened to skipped chapters as being listened to.
I'm getting Libby setup today with my library card.
You do realise this is a pirate community? The way yor comment reads, it seems like you dislike OP wanting free stuff.
I am aware of people doing some mental gymnastics to justify piracy. But IMHO that is about the same difference as a pirate to a privateer. Just acknowledge that you want stuff without paying and hoist that black flag.