I edit audiobooks for a living, here’s why Audible is the best day one deal

When people set their watches for Prime Day, they’re usually thinking ahead to all the cool tech deals they can get their hands on. And as great as those tech deals are, people often don’t consider the offers from Amazon’s other platforms like Audible. This prime day, you can snag three whole months of an Audible subscription for absolutely nothing.

3 months of free audio this main day

As far as I’m concerned, this is the best Prime Day deal in this year’s sales event. “But Joe, you’re just a fraud, why are you so excited about Audible?” Pretend I hear you ask even though I probably don’t.

Well, here’s a transcript of a conversation I have at least once a month:

“What do you do for work then, Joe?”

“Ah, I do audiobooks.”

“Oh, wow! So he confessed them then?”

“No, I just edit all the audio and get it ready for release.” It is here that they usually become significantly less interested. But suffice it to say, I know my way around an Audiobook and there’s no platform like Audible.

What makes it audible so special?

If I had to put a number on the amount of audiobooks I’ve edited in my career so far, I’d probably have to put it somewhere in the range of 300-400 titles. The vast majority of them (probably about 95%) end up being distributed on Audible. I worked briefly at a company that was retro enough to still burn their books to CD, but even the staff had no idea why we bothered.

The simple fact of the audiobook market is that Audible simply doesn’t have any major competitors offering anything close to their catalog. Audible’s comprehensiveness is so evident in the industry that when I get a job, no one has to tell me that it has to work to Audible specs, it’s just an assumed part of the process.

Their catalog is extensive, very extensive. According to Amazon’s numbers, there are over 400,000 titles available on the platform, and many of them are exclusive to Audible. Dune, Project Hail Mary, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, get it? There’s also the Audible Plus catalog, but we’ll talk more about that in a minute.

A wide market

Audible isn’t just a place for best sellers. Thanks to a platform called ACX, anyone with the budget to professionally convert their book to audio can have their title up on Audible. This leads to a huge range in genres and styles for customers to listen to on the platform.

Need a self-help book? It’s there. Books of the Bible? Yes. Travel guide? Safe thing. The open nature of ACX allows for such a range of titles that listeners can never run out of things to listen to.

Oh, and you can also listen to podcasts and audio dramas on Audible, not just audiobooks.

Quantity and quality

If there’s one thing that keeps me – and I suspect other people in the industry who care about their jobs – up at night, it’s IT. There has been talk for some time that AI voices will squeeze broadcasters (and by extension editors like me) out of the market. I appreciate having a tuned ear for narration, but I can’t stand the robotic edge that comes with the more sophisticated AI text-to-speech options. Currently, there is simply no substitute for a strong narrator who can take the nuances of the text and bring it to life for listeners.

Thankfully, Audible agrees. They have capable (if not perfect) AI detection and will refuse to load any title they suspect hasn’t been read by a human. This ensures a level of quality and consistency across the platform, even with the staggering number of books available.

This also keeps me in a job, so, you know, I have an obvious bias here.

How does Audible work?

When you sign up for your free three-month subscription, you’ll receive their standard membership plan. This means that every month, Audible will deposit a credit into your account every month on the same date. You can then take this beautiful snippet and use it to add titles to your library. So basically, you’re getting one book a month from your subscription, and if you sign up through the Prime Day deal, you’re getting yourself three free books.

If you’re wondering what the RRP is for an audiobook, you’re probably looking at around £15.99 for something nine or ten hours in length, but they can be as expensive as £35. Even after the promotion ends, the basic membership level is £7.99 per month and all titles cost just one credit. And you can use credits for titles of any length. Let’s take Orlando Figes’ A People’s Tragedy as an example—because it’s the longest book I have in my Audible library at 47 hours long. The audio format of the book costs around £23.99, which is quite a fair price considering the large number of pages. I paid the monthly subscription fee and used my credit to buy it, leaving me £16 better off.

You can also upgrade your membership and pay £14.99 per month to receive two credits per month. And, if you’re not full, you can also buy extra credits between renewal dates or just buy the titles for their RRP.

Audible Plus catalog

Audible made a big song and dance about the launch of the Plus Catalog, and I can see why. This is basically their audiobook streaming service. Everyone with an Audible membership will have access to a rotating catalog of over 11,000 titles that are free to play without having to drop any money or credits on them.

I absolutely gobbled this up when they first launched the catalog because I often found myself flashing through my credits before the renewal date came around so I had titles I could listen to without having to buy extra credit, was a great way to fill that gap.

What is Amazon Prime Day?

Amazon Prime Day is one of the biggest sales events of the year after Black Friday. It’s a time when Prime members can take advantage of a wide variety of discounts available on the Amazon site, from technology to books to movies and much more. Sometimes, other retailers will even get in on the sale event fun with their own competitive deals, which are good to see.

If you are a Prime member, you can view the discounts available now. And if you’re not, don’t worry, you can sign up for one 30-day free trial to see what’s still on offer today.

Joe O’Neill-Parker is a freelance writer and audio producer. He is the owner of O’Neill Multimedia. He writes business, sports, and audio technology articles for IGN.