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Scribd adds Audiobooks to its Plan Scribd Adds Audiobooks To All-You-Read Library, Piling Pressure On Amazon



Quote: In July, the San Francisco company woke up to find that Amazon.com had imitated one of its core services, introducing an all-you-can-read book subscription service that rivaled the “Netflix for books” model pioneered by Scribd and fellow competitor Oyster. With “Kindle Unlimited,” the Seattle retailer made it a selling point that it had more titles than the little guys, as well as something the others didn’t have: more than 2,000 audiobooks.



On Thursday, that distinction is no more as Scribd launched its own audiobook vertical, a collection that will feature 30,000 titles at no extra charge to subscribers. For the 7-year-old company, the new service is an opportunity to tap into more than $1 billion audiobook market that lacks a dominant player, and challenge Amazon as the tech giant faces a host of problems in the digital publishing space.



“Audiobooks are just a good fit for your iPhone or your Android phone, while you’re driving or if you’re going to sleep,” said Scribd CEO Trip Adler. “They’re a very good use case [for reading] and we think it’s a big, growing market.” This adds a new dynamic to these subscription plans. The ball is now in Amazon's court.