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Mel wrote: "Hey everyone. Ok. So, I touched based with Audible. I received a decent letter of apology. They acknowledged that I've had an overall pretty bad experience with Audible. They apologized and said th..."That's awesome, Mel!
Thanks Kat! *Does a happy dance*I'm so happy I am a part of this group. :)
Mel wrote: "Thanks Kat! *Does a happy dance*I'm so happy I am a part of this group. :)"
I'm happy you're a part of this group, too. And I hope that from now on you too share in the majority experiences of this group and have nothing but positive experiences with Audible!
I've been silently following your tribulations, Mel. I've been a member of Audible.com for about 10 years, have 4-500 audio files from them, and have never had any issues they weren't able to fix almost immediately. Glad it seems to be working out, I sort of figured it would :-). Right now I'm listening to Safe Haven, by Sparks and have the Lord of the Rings trilogy on my plate for the next listen.
Mel wrote: "Hey everyone. Ok. So, I touched based with Audible. I received a decent letter of apology. They acknowledged that I've had an overall pretty bad experience with Audible. They apologized and said th..."Glad that Audible has made some good progress toward making you feel better about doing business with them.
I've had mistakes happen on my side and on theirs, but these have always been fixed as soon as I've called. I hope your future experience is as good.
Samyann wrote: "I've been silently following your tribulations, Mel. I've been a member of Audible.com for about 10 years, have 4-500 audio files from them, and have never had any issues they weren't able to fix a..."Lord of the Rings is my favorite book of all times, both print and audio. I hope you'll share your experiences as you listen by posting periodically in the April 2013--or even May 2013--thread. I hope you love the audio of LotR as much as I do.
Mel, I had a terrible time setting up my Audilbe account. I thought that was because I live in Belgium.BUT once it was correctly established (I think it took a couple of months!), everything has worked perfectly. They are always kind and helpful. I hope my experience will be the same for you. Good luck! I don't touch anything now that it is working properly! :0)
Can Audible Platinum Account credits be applied to Kindle e-book purchases with "Whispersync for Voice?"I know this question is stretching things a bit, but since Audible.com and Amazon Kindle are both part of the same company it should be possible for some sort of credit.
Jeanie wrote: "Mel wrote: "Thanks Kat! *Does a happy dance*I'm so happy I am a part of this group. :)"
I'm happy you're a part of this group, too. And I hope that from now on you too share in the majority expe..."
You're so kind Jeanie! Thank you!!! I surely will! *hugs*
Great that things are doing better for you - please be sure to let us know of books that were either terrific ... or not.
Samyann wrote: "I've been silently following your tribulations, Mel. I've been a member of Audible.com for about 10 years, have 4-500 audio files from them, and have never had any issues they weren't able to fix a..."Oh Samyann! You're one of the lucky one :) I'm glad everything worked out too! I have 'Safe Haven' on my wishlist and will probably get it soon.
Wow, did you say 10 years!? Where the heck have I been? I didn't join until last year. In all fairness, I didn't do much research into audio book programs, and once I became hooked, I was happy to join Audible. I'm hoping everything is smooth sailing from here on out!
CatBookMom wrote: "Mel wrote: "Hey everyone. Ok. So, I touched based with Audible. I received a decent letter of apology. They acknowledged that I've had an overall pretty bad experience with Audible. They apologized..."Thanks CatBookMom. They did make me feel a bit better. I was beginning to worry that I would have to find a new stress outlet'. HA. I literally go through audio books like tic tacs, and didn't know what I would do without my 'fix'.
Mel wrote: "Thanks Kat! *Does a happy dance*I'm so happy I am a part of this group. :)"
Glad to hear it worked out for you! Glad to know too, that the email address Audible gave our group was acted upon promptly and more importantly to your satisfaction.
Chrissie wrote: "Mel, I had a terrible time setting up my Audilbe account. I thought that was because I live in Belgium.BUT once it was correctly established (I think it took a couple of months!), everything has ..."
HA! FINALLY. Someone else who had a rough time. Good grief... did you say 2 months! I started panicking after 2 days! LOL I'm glad you're account is finally set up and I'm hoping we BOTH have a positive experience from here on out.
And Belgium!!!I'm immensely jealous. oooh I have only been there for a brief vacation! One word. CHOCOLATE. YUMMMM.
Happy listening!!!!
John wrote: "Great that things are doing better for you - please be sure to let us know of books that were either terrific ... or not."Hey John! will do. I go through phases though. One month it might be all Sci Fi. The next might be Non- Fiction. The next month... all Romance... so my tastes are subjective :P
Grumpus wrote: "Mel wrote: "Thanks Kat! *Does a happy dance*I'm so happy I am a part of this group. :)"
Glad to hear it worked out for you! Glad to know too, that the email address Audible gave our group was act..."
Yes. Thanks again Grumpus.
Mel wrote: "John wrote: "Great that things are doing better for you - please be sure to let us know of books that were either terrific ... or not."Hey John! will do. I go through phases though. One month it ..."
I have to rotate them: a nonfiction with a British reader, followed by a modern novel with an American male, a British classic with a British female, etc.
Mel wrote: "Chrissie wrote: "Mel, I had a terrible time setting up my Audilbe account. I thought that was because I live in Belgium.BUT once it was correctly established (I think it took a couple of months!)..."
Well, we will be moving back home to Sweden soon and this makes me happy. I am a bit petrified what will happen when I have to change the info at Audible......
John wrote: "Mel wrote: "John wrote: "Great that things are doing better for you - please be sure to let us know of books that were either terrific ... or not."Hey John! will do. I go through phases though. O..."
Hilarious, John! I love your process.
Do you know what I hate? When you fall in love with a voice and you (because I'm a complete dork) go through every work s/he has read, only to discover that there is no more for you to read. *sigh* It's pretty awful. This is the second time that it's happened to me. I don't recommend it to anyone :P
Clif wrote: "Can Audible Platinum Account credits be applied to Kindle e-book purchases with "Whispersync for Voice?"I know this question is stretching things a bit, but since Audible.com and Amazon Kindle ar..."
Hi Clif! Although Audible is an Amazon company, Audible credits cannot be used to purchase Kindle ebooks. However, if you purchase a Whsipersync for Voice ebook first, you can get the audiobook at a discounted price. For more information, please email social-support@audible.com
Dear Audible, I've mentioned this question before, but now I'm really wanting an answer when possible. It's about the Hamish Macbeth series by M. C. Beaton--btw, Customer Service hasn't known the answer when asked.Some time back books started disappearing from Audible within the Hamish Macbeth series--all of them the early books narrated by Davina Porter. The Graham Malcolm books remained and the newest release just last month was by him as well. Today I saw that books were being added back to the HM series. All but one are the earliest books but are narrated by a completely new male narrator. What the heck is going on? There have always been four books missing from the series on Audible and I hoped they would eventually appear, but now I'm confused and don't know what to hope for.
So, when can I expect books 16, 17, 18, and 20 of the Hamish Macbeth series? Why were Davina Porter's narrations dropped from this series? Will there eventually be two complete series with two different narrators on Audible or will I be piecing together the series with three different narrators?
while this is one specific example that I'm interested in knowing about now, I've noticed more and more vanishing books in series and reappearances with old or new narrators. I follow many--very many--series on Audible and so am quite interested in possible future complications with those as well. So, our friendly Audible rep, what can you tell me?
Jeanie wrote: "Dear Audible, I've mentioned this question before, but now I'm really wanting an answer when possible. It's about the Hamish Macbeth series by M. C. Beaton--btw, Customer Service hasn't known the ..."Hi Jeanie! The original series was removed from the store. We can't comment on why narrators change during a series - there are a lot of reasons. Sometimes there's a scheduling conflict, or sometimes an actor no longer wants to perform. Since the audio by the original publisher is no longer available, we published a new version.
For more information about this series and to find out about other titles you are interested in, please email content-requests@audible.com and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
Audible.com wrote: "...The Hamish MacBeth series narrated by Davina Porter is no longer being distributed in Audio. While the option to re-negotiate the contract with the publisher is always available, it does not always happen. ..."Could I just ask for clarification? Is it the contract between the publisher and Davina Porter which has not been renegotiated? Or is it the contract between the publisher and Audible which has not been renegotiated?
Why does the contract need to be "renegotiated", anyway?
I'm asking because, like Jennie, I often invest in long series. I hate it when the narrator changes. Also, I prefer some narrators to others generally, and it worries me when I see books being re-recorded when they have already been performed very well by a good narrator. I'm concerned that there may be a system developing where the good narrators are being priced out of the market.
Hi wrote:"I'm concerned that there may by a system developing where the good narrators are being priced out of the market." That really scares me! Narrating well is a high skill and the best should be well paid. They sell books that we might not otherwise purchase. I become deeply appreciative of my favorite narrators. It would be devastating to lose them. Listen to us, Audible.
Margaret - one of the ways in which good narrators may be excluded from the market is the huge price reduction for audiobooks when they're purchased with ebooks under Amazon/Audible's Whispersync. The authors/publishers who pay for the initial production of the audiobook have no say in this price reduction, which has an obvious effect on their ability to recover the costs of production (let alone make reasonable profits). ACX, the sister-company of Audible and Amazon, makes the production of audiobooks a relatively easy process. One of the options is for a royalty-sharing arrangement for rights holders and narrators. But if the audiobook is then sold incredibly cheaply, there are very low royalties to be shared. Either way (paid up front or by royalty share), I don't see how narrators can be paid a reasonable amount when the price of the audiobook is set unrealistically low.
And there is also little incentive for rights holders to make new quality audiobooks with this pricing scheme. Where there is a Kindle version of the book which matches the audiobook, Audible/Amazon will unilaterally cut the prices for Whispersync.
I think Whispersync is an excellent use of technology, and I wish we had it in the UK. But I don't want to deprive authors and narrators of their livelihoods. I'm prepared to pay a proper price for both ebooks and audiobooks. Quite frankly, the price of a credit on Audible is cheap enough for me, when I think what unabridged audiobooks cost otherwise.
Hj wrote: "Audible.com wrote: "...The Hamish MacBeth series narrated by Davina Porter is no longer being distributed in Audio. While the option to re-negotiate the contract with the publisher is always availa..."I'm guessing that contracts in general for print/audio have a limited time that they are effective and then the rights revert back to the author - who can then either renegotiate was the publisher; re-release the book self-pub'd etc - guessing audiobook rights work similar
Hey Everyone.Ok, here is my issue.
I do love reading member's (listeners) opinions of books, but I don't know how to get these reviews NOT sent to my email. I don't want to 'unfollow' the people I have chosen, but good grief, I'm getting close to 8+ emails a day just from the reviews @Audible alone. I wish there was an easy way to do this; perhaps just click a box selecting to discontinue these types of emails. Unfortunately, the Audible Member page isn't as user-friendly as all that, so I don't know how to fix this. Can someone please help?
Mel, is the message to the right just above the blank 'comment box' marked as "You are following this discussion"? You can edit that to 'not' follow the discussion. You can decide which threads you want to follow this way. I'm sure there are other ways to change what you receive in your email, too.
Mel wrote: "... I don't know how to get these reviews NOT sent to my email. ..."Go to "edit profile", click on "emails" -- Examine the choices under "Email me new reviews from friends:"
Just to clarify, it was my impression Mel was asking how to set it up so there won't be a flood of emails about reviews by the people she follows AT AUDIBLE, not at Goodreads.I had this issue too and, at the time, there was no way to follow someone and NOT get those annoying emails telling me everytime someone I followed wrote a review so I had to unfollow.
Dear Audible, I prefer to see those reviews when I log-in to Audible. It just creates too many emails. (pull info vs have it pushed at me)
Ali-ef wrote: "...Mel was asking how to set it up so there won't be a flood of emails about reviews by the people she follows AT AUDIBLE, not at Goodreads. ..."Oh, I see! I didn't even know it was possible to follow people on Audible.com. Well, now that I know I guess you have provided me a good reason not to start.
Clif wrote: "Ali-ef wrote: "...Mel was asking how to set it up so there won't be a flood of emails about reviews by the people she follows AT AUDIBLE, not at Goodreads. ..."Oh, I see! I didn't even know it w..."
Same here!
Hj wrote: "Audible.com wrote: "...The Hamish MacBeth series narrated by Davina Porter is no longer being distributed in Audio. While the option to re-negotiate the contract with the publisher is always availa..."Hi HJ! To best answer your question, please email content-requests@audible.com and someone from our Back Office Team will get back to you as soon as possible.
Mel wrote: "Hey Everyone.Ok, here is my issue.
I do love reading member's (listeners) opinions of books, but I don't know how to get these reviews NOT sent to my email. I don't want to 'unfollow' the people..."
Hi Mel and Ali-ef! At this time, there is no option to follow someone on Audible and not receive email notifications. I apologize for any inconvenience that this has caused.
I do think this is a great idea and have forwarded it to our Development team as a possible site feature. If you have any other ideas, please submit them to greatideas@audible.com. We regularly incorporate Great Ideas submissions into the Audible experience, so sending a quick email can make a real difference.
Audible.com wrote: "Hi HJ! To best answer your question, please email content-requests@audible.com and someone from our Back Office Team will get back to you as soon as possible. ..."Have emailed as requested.
Audible.com wrote: "Mel wrote: "Hey Everyone.Ok, here is my issue.
I do love reading member's (listeners) opinions of books, but I don't know how to get these reviews NOT sent to my email. I don't want to 'unfollow..."
Hi Ali-ef: Thanks for letting me know. Gees. That is aggravating. How is it that there isn't a box to click and select NO REVIEWS SENT TO YOUR EMAILS ADDRESS. Personally, I don't think it's that difficult to create, and I can't understand how anyone on their Quality Assurance team didn't think about this.
Hi Audible, Thank you for emailing your back office team about this issue. You are correct, it is quite aggravating. I'm wondering if someone from your back office team can start reading this forum. It would certainly be more efficient. And, in an effort to improve certain aspects of Audible, I think it would be nice for Audible to use 'us' users as actual testers of their system. We have nothing to lose, so we're pretty honest about the plus and minuses of Audible.
Just a couple helpful suggestions.
Mel;)
Clif wrote: "Ali-ef wrote: "...Mel was asking how to set it up so there won't be a flood of emails about reviews by the people she follows AT AUDIBLE, not at Goodreads. ..."Oh, I see! I didn't even know it w..."
LOL Yes, don't start. I was surprised, the service seemed fun... LOL
Mel wrote: "Audible.com wrote: "Mel wrote: "Hey Everyone.Ok, here is my issue.
I do love reading member's (listeners) opinions of books, but I don't know how to get these reviews NOT sent to my email. I don..."
Hey Mel! This is also a good idea! We will look into using testers in the future, as well.
Our social media team does check the Goodreads forums on a daily basis. While we might not reply directly to every inquiry, we do take note on what is being talked about and escalate it to the proper department.
Thanks for your input!
Hi Mel . . . That's a real bummer . . . I don't think I've ever had this problem . . . I think maybe because I almost always buy my audiobooks with credits . . . or use the sales they're always having.
My pet peeve is problems I've had with B&N . . . there's always something. Sometimes I just go offline . . . I have other things to do in life without spending countless hours trying to resolve some software glitch or server issue . . .
Mel, I suggest setting up a filter for those emails in whatever email client you are using. You can have them filter into a folder, or straight into the trash.
Will February by Lisa Moore, a recent award-winner in Canada, ever be released on Audible? I am finding the writing style very difficult to grasp, and would love to have it read to me :)
This is a big question for the folks at the Audible database:Today I pulled up all of my Audible library, all 900+ items (yeah, lots of multi-part books), and sorted them by author. It was educational and dismaying: there is a major problem with the way input and sorting works in the Audible database of authors.
I found that, as an example, books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are sorted in A, C and D. Similarly, J. D. Robb can be found in D and in R, and Lois McMaster Bujold is found in M and B.
Since the merger of the Audible and Amazon Manage My Kindle databases, I've complained to Audible and to Amazon about the fact that it seems that Amazon and Audible don't sort the same way, but today's display of my little bit of the Audible database says that things are even worse than I thought.
The simplest database would have "FirstName", "LastName" fields, and would have figured out how to manage authors with 3 names - J. D. Robb, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Lois McMaster Bujold. Apparently this data isn't being well-edited at Audible. For several years, the search function at Audible has been difficult, wanting periods and spaces in just the right sequences, far less flexible than most 'fuzzy-search' algorithms generally are, these days.
I hope that pointing this problem out in this forum may get more attention than my efforts at either Amazon or Audible directly have had. It's annoying to have to play with searching for FirstName LastName or LastName FirstName to try to get all of my audiobooks And Ebooks on the same listing.
It is most ironic that Amazon didn't seem to expect that so many people would accumulate hundreds, even thousands of Kindle books, and then came the decision to add Audible libraries to the mixture. Personally I have nearly 1700 items in Manage My Kindle, and it is annoying how slowly the sort/search functions work.
I'd like to address the audio samples on the Audible site. Quite often they are samples of the preface, read by the author or someone other than the narrator of the book. Not very helpful when trying to determine if the narrator is appealing.
I could not agree MORE, Verena! Also, quite they contain largely intro music on occasion.
Verena wrote: "I'd like to address the audio samples on the Audible site. Quite often they are samples of the preface, read by the author or someone other than the narrator of the book. Not very helpful when tryi..."Adding my agree to your issue, Verena.
Oh Audible, how can I see how many books I have with you? When I check my Audible-library, because of the many multi-part books, there is NO correlation to the actual number of books I have purchased.
Ali-ef wrote: "Oh Audible, how can I see how many books I have with you? When I check my Audible-library, because of the many multi-part books, there is NO correlation to the actual number of books I have purc..."
Yes, this is an annoying lack on the part of Audible's database.
It was a tedious process, but I am so happy that was able to input my Audible library (and my iTunes and purchased-audiobook-on-CD, etc) into GoodReads. So I know how many audiobooks I have, how many I still haven't listened to, etc.
I keep a pen-and-paper listing of my Audio TBR from all sources, which I need as I have stuff loaded onto three different devices, so I need to know what went where!
John, what about using bookshelves to indicate what went where? You could have a bookshelf for each device and when you load a book on to that device, you add it to the bookshelf.
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The customer service rep couldn't guarantee that my account wouldn't have more problems (and honestly, I wouldn't have trusted them had they said that they would ensure I'd have no more issues.) But, the fact that they acknowledged that I am not hallucinating, and that my Audible experience has NOT been good, made me feel immensely better. (Mini Vindication!)
I want to thank everyone. Even those of you who made me feel as though I was a complete loser (kidding), being singled out because you'd had such a MARVELOUS experience with Audible. LOL :P
I'm going to find the best subscription for me. I will, of course, keep you all updated!
Happy listening!