"Does google play have audiobooks?". Yes, sure it has. As the saying goes," Newborn calves are not afraid of tigers". Google announced to add audiobooks to Google Play Store in January 2018, straightly aiming at the biggest competitor, Amazon Audible. An exciting battle between Google and Audible started when Google entered into audiobook market competition. Up to now, Google Audiobooks has launched for a year. What is the position it reaches? In this article, the author will compare the audiobook services provided by the two companies from 5 parts: pricing, the library collection, after-sales services, compatible playing devices, and other features.
Part 1. Price Comparison
Audible provides listeners for membership subscription plans which includes a monthly/annual fee and gets credits as rewards in the meantime. There are 2 subscription plans: The Gold plan and The Silver plan. The Gold plan costs you $14.95 per month for 1 credit, and the Platinum plan needs you to pay $22.95 per month for 2 credits. If you are a new user, you will get 1-month free trial with 1 free credit.
Once you're an Audible subscriber, you can get 1 audiobook for 1 credit every month, and choose 2 Audible originals audiobooks from the monthly selections, no matter what the audiobook price is. All Audible members can purchase regular audiobooks at a 30% discount. And Audible members have the unlimited privilege to listen to all Audible Channels content. Besides, up to September 5, 2019, Audible will offer new content of fitness to all members. It is a new audio-guided fitness program with the cooperation of Aaptiv, the top 1 audio fitness app.
The Silver plan actually is hidden that Audible doesn't advertise. Audible Silver membership plan is priced at $14.95 every 2 months. Still, You only get 1 credit every time for 1 free audiobook. If 6 books a year is enough to read, then Silver plan suits you well. It should be noted that there is no quick access to the silver plan subscription. You have to enter to Audible customer service page and open a chat window to ask them to downgrade your membership to silver.
Google Play Audiobooks chooses a different way. They allow you to buy audiobooks separately, instead of membership plans. Just to pay the shelf price of the book then you can get it. Sometimes, there is a sales promotion of audiobooks called "Time-limited Offer". The price for each book is usually less than $10, much cheaper than the average $14.95 from Audible. It is certain that you can select the free one from the list of "Top Free Audiobooks".
Part 2. Library Collection
Audible has a large selection of over 400,000 audiobooks. Almost all categories are contained, mysteries & thrillers, sci-fi & fantasy, history, classics and so forth. Any audiobooks you want can be found in Audible if it cannot be searched in somewhere else.
The quantity data of audiobooks Google Play is available cannot be found on the internet because Google didn't share any information about it. But we can assume that the number of Google audio books will be smaller than Audible's, for the reason that Google has just launched the audiobook service since January 2018, which is a shorter period compared by Audible's.
Part 3. After-sales Service
Audible offers great after-sales service to guarantee every member that they can return any audiobook back purchased in the last 12 months. It is a very simple operation for you that all you need to do is to check your order history and hit the "Return" button, and if you paid for it with your credit card, the money will be sent back to your account, and if you paid by your own credits, you will get the credits returned.
Google Play Audiobooks only announces one return policy that straightly indicates "All sales are final". You will get your amount back only if the audiobook fails to download or run.
Part 4. Compatible Players & Devices
Audible audiobooks are available on many different kinds of devices, such as Android devices, iOS devices, Windows Phone, Kindle devices, Alexa-enabled devices, etc. You can also ask Alexa to read Kindle books which support Text-to-Speech technology in your library.
Google Play Music audiobooks are compatible with various types of devices, including but not limited to: iOS and Android phones, Android Wear devices, most devices that support Google Assistant, and more. But there is an exception that should be noticed: you can't listen to an audiobook on your Google Home.
Part 5. Other Features
There are some special features that have not been mentioned above. Both support you to share audiobooks to others. The slight difference is that using Audible, you are allowed to share an audiobook with only 1 user in your Amazon Household. While you are able to share with five members maximum in your family.
In addition, the "Car Mode" in Audible enables you to enjoy audiobooks in the car by connecting Bluetooth, USB, etc. What makes Audible even better is the feature named "WisperSync", switch between reading and listening if you have the same title of both audiobook and ebook.
Google audio books provide the function "Android Auto", to help you play audiobooks in the car. Besides, with the work of Google Assistant, audiobooks on Google Play can be read via voice command and you can set the sleep mode or adjust the play speed.
Conclusion & More tips
As we can see the comparisons above, Audible audiobook is far superior to its competitor, Google Play audiobook in every part. At least for now, Audible still takes the leading position in the audiobook market.
However, Audiobooks downloaded from Audible are AAX or AA formats. Protected by DRM, those audiobooks don't allow you to share the purchased one to others (except the only 1 friend in your Amazon Household).
Moreover, it is absolute that Audible audiobooks cannot suit all of the platforms, so you still can't switch your audiobooks freely among multiple devices. Therefore, it is necessary to remove DRM from Audible audiobooks and transfer them to commonly used formats like MP3, WAC, etc.
AudFree Audio Converter is a professional tool specialized in removing DRM protection from your Audible audiobooks and transferring the AA, AAX formats to the non-DRM formats such as MP3.
If you are in urgent need of this software, please download as above. If you want to know more information about it, please check the user guide of Audible converter to see how it works.
Ivan Scott
Staff Editor
