Audible Japan now 'All you can listen'

Japanese
#1

Since their inception/popularization, one of the best ways to practice listening has always been audiobooks. However, due to the ridiculous prices/one coin per month model of Amazon, this resource was a bit beyond what most people would consider good value.

However, as of now, Audible Japan has switched to a 聴き放題 model, bringing it in line with many other countries. This means you can listen to as many books as you want for a flat monthly fee (about ¥1800).

This is incredible value for the amount of material that is included in a very very wide range of categories. Light novels, biographies, world history, politics, self help, business and economics, communication, just to name a few.

I would not have recommended audible before today, but 100% recommend it in its new structure. You are also able to download books for offline listening as is standard with many other streaming sources. The only downside at all is that not 100% of books are included in the ‘all you can listen’ model, and must still be purchased. However, this is mostly new releases/business books.

Last note - As audiobooks follow the books themselves 100% (in most cases), they are also great to follow along with while reading.

Hope some of you guys are able to make use of this! I sure will be :drooling_face:

21 Likes
#2

Most of the easy light novels I buy are on “Kindle Unlimited” which is a similar concept but for books, sadly those have some very nasty IP blocks and require residence in the country and a verifiable phone number in the country (They tell you an agent is going to call to verify).

I’ll test if those nasty checks are in place for Audible, hopefully not.

Update: They won’t accept my cards because they are foreigner ones. I used to have a JCB that would bypass this, but my bank no longer supports it and has discontinued it.

9 Likes
#3

Kind of frustrating because they absolutely want a credit card. I always just buy pre-paid cards from my local conbini when I want anything off Amazon. I assumed I’d be able to use that to pay for a whole year of Kindle Unlimited but, nope, only credit cards.

3 Likes
#5

Can you gift memberships on Audible Japan? I looked briefly but couldn’t find anything.

I know you can on Audible US.

#6

If you use LINE you can get a virtual debit card really easily through the app which you should be able to use for this. You scan a QR at the conbini and deposit money onto it through ATMs.

#7

Why not just get a credit card? Isn’t going to the conbini to pay for stuff kind of annoying?

By the way you can print a paper from the machine in the conbini (the same one used for concert tickets) to print a slip and pay for amazon orders at the register. You don’t need to buy a prepaid card.

#8

That sounds great for users but I feel really bad for all the authors in japan who also get even more abused by audible now.
If everyone only listened to audiobooks on audible there wouldn’t be any audiobooks anymore because the “payment” authors and creators get is so bad that people couldn’t afford to produce audio books anymore if that were the case :slightly_frowning_face: