Just days after Spotify announced its entry into the physical book sales market, which included an audiobook feature that lets you sync your listening and offline reading progress, Amazon-owned Audible announced… It was launched A feature that combines e-books with audiobooks.
Company Announce On Wednesday, the “Blended Reading” feature debuted in the Audible app, allowing readers who have both the eBook and audiobook versions of a title in their Audible and Kindle libraries to read the eBook text while the audio is playing. The feature also allows users to switch between different formats across devices. While in Read and Listen mode, book text is highlighted in real time in sync with the narration.
Kindle app Already offered tool This would allow readers to switch between the audiobook and e-book versions, when both versions are purchased. This feature is now coming to the Audible app for the first time. The company says customers will need to own both versions of the book for this to work, but audiobooks will be made available at a discount to customers who own the matching eBook.
At launch, hundreds of thousands of titles will be supported through the new Read & Listen feature, including English, German, Spanish, Italian and French. Initially, the option will be offered in the US, with the UK, Australia and Germany receiving support over the next few months.
To discover eligible titles, Audible will automatically identify Kindle eBooks that contain matching audiobooks within its app.
Of course, many customers were already reading and listening to their books without purchasing two copies — by having Alexa narrate their eBooks from their Kindle library. Alexa is by no means a professional storyteller, and the AI assistant’s monotonous delivery can lead you to zone out. By offering a way to add the audiobook at a lower price when you’ve already purchased the eBook, Amazon hopes to boost book sales across formats.
The company also claims that a combination of reading and listening can improve focus and comprehension, according to industry research and internal data. Additionally, customers who read and listen are the most engaged, consuming nearly twice as much content per month than audiobook-only customers, Audible noted.
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This feature might make sense for students and those learning a new language, as well as those trying to read more books quickly. It’s also useful for those who regularly switch between reading and listening, and those who want to experience narration – especially if the book is read by a favorite voice actor. Additionally, some may simply appreciate having the narrator introduce all the characters by name, so they can learn the pronunciation without having to guess (a particularly thorny problem in fantasy novels!)
“Audiobooks are like reading,” Andy Tsao, chief product officer at Audible, said in a statement about the launch. “But now on Audible, you can read with your eyes, too. Reading and listening give book lovers the best of both worlds. Whether you’re learning a new language, studying for school, or lost in the world of a story, you no longer have to choose one format over the other.”
Amazon notes that the new feature will not affect copyright payments to publishers.
