Scribd adds audiobooks in Netflix-for-books race
Subscription-based e-book lending service Scribd is now offering audiobooks, the company announced Thursday. Scribd is one of three top contenders -- alongside Oyster and Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited -- in the race to become the leading Netflix-for-books provider.
Scribd has added 30,000 audiobooks to its 500,000 e-books, accessible with an $8.99 monthly charge.
The audiobooks are across the genre spectrum. There are literary options such as “The Savage Detectives” by Roberto Bolaño, “No Country for Old Men” by Cormac McCarthy and “Hardboiled Wonderland” by Haruki Murakami alongside the bestselling YA trilogy “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins.
There are full cast recordings of Shakespeare and classic radio dramas as well as self-help books like “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle. And children’s books read by celebrities include “Who’s in Rabbit’s House” read by James Earl Jones, “Chrysanthemum” read by Meryl Streep, “Owen” read by Sarah Jessica Parker and “The True Story of the Three Little Pigs” read by Paul Giamatti.
Popular audiobook narrators Jim Dale, Simon Vance and Katherine Kellgren are also in the mix.
The audiobooks will be available on all platforms; many are running now, but iOS users aren’t expected to be up and running until next week.
Amazon, which owns leading audiobook company Audible, has not opened those floodgates to its Kindle Unlimited users. Instead, it has only about 2,000 audiobooks on offer via its version of Netflix-for-books.
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