02387: Amazon, Audible and Prime Video


Anyone who knows me already knows that I'm heavily invested in the Amazon Kindle universe. I legitimately pay for Kindle ebooks, mostly when they're on sale. My Kindle is my best friend when I travel. Amazon owns a part of my soul, and all that jazz.

One of the quirkier upgrades available as of late is the option to add Audible narration for books that I already own on Kindle. Amazon offers varying discounts for these sort of bundle offers, often times discounts that seem higher than the 30% discount offered to Audible Gold members at times. I forget how it happened but somewhere along the way I managed to get the Audible upgrade for the 10th anniversary edition of American Gods and I finally got around to listening to it recently. It was a rather nice experience and a new way to experience the book. Plus it gave me something to do during my walks home and while working.

That got me thinking about staying with Audible for a longer period of time but I'm undecided if the nearly $15 monthly fee is worth a book a month. I understand how an audio book should cost more than a regular book, but it does feel like a bit of a pretty penny to invest on an on-going basis. And not all audio books are quite as compelling as some of the full cast productions I've gotten to enjoy as of late. For now I'm yet another Audible free trial as I seem to be able to get the free month every now and then.

I don't know if an Audible subscription is worth it on an on-going basis or maybe I should just resort to getting the Audible Narration upgrades for Kindle books that I own since the discounts are better. When you try to cancel Audible you get shifted to a retention plan for 3 months that is half the fee but still 1 credit per month so maybe that's an option for a limited period of time. But we'll see.

And then there's the recent revelation that Amazon has created Prime Videos, which is a standalone version of the Amazon Videos service for users outside of the US. I was puzzling over how to get access to the new American Gods TV series through Amazon as Neil Gaiman's Twitter posts assured us that the Philippine rights were to be done through Amazon, but I did not expect for things to go in this manner. I've declined signing up for the service for now but will wait for the American Gods air date to start the trial so we can watch for free. Loki would approve.

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