My story of Scribd
I was having a chat with a like-minded family member of mine which is rare as most friends and family are not into self-improvement or bettering themselves.
This gentleman however like me is continuously always looking to improve himself to be a bigger and better person. We often talk about various software, apps and books we’ve read when we catch up at a family gathering.
We were comparing Real books to Digital books and I’ve personally never caught onto eBooks as I like to hold the physical book when I read. Never the less, he told me he often reads in bed to which I replied, using a Kindle? He said “na man, I use this app called Scribd”. At first I was like, what kind of a weird name is that!
Immediately I mentally turned off because I didn’t want to download another app and secondly I didn’t want to use the tiny mobile screen to read books. I did however decide to download it immediately so I wont often the name as it was a tricky one to remember – Scribd.
I’ve downloaded many mobile apps in recent months to test and play around with and seriously, when I started looking into this on a train ride the following week, I was pleasantly impressed.
Explain, what is Scribd?
The easist way to explain Scribd is, it’s the Audiobook and Digital Books equivalent of Netflix.
What does that mean? It means you can stream and much content as you want each month at a flat fee but you don’t technically own the content. Same concept as Netflix right? You can watch a movie over and over again but you can’t download and keep the content on your hard-drive forever.
Like Netflix, you can download content for a short period of time using your Wi-Fi to save you your Cell-data allowance.
So why is Scribd so good?
If you’re familier with such subscription companies as Audible, you pay a monthly fee to which you are allocated a 1 credit. With that credit, you can purchase an audiobook. You can sample 3-5 minutes of the book prior to purchase but that’s it. If you decide to buy the book, you are stuck with it.
Pro Tip: Don’t buy anything books on Audible prior to checking YouTube to see if anyone has uploaded a copyright free version which you can listen to.
With Scribd, I’ve had the privilege to listen to whole chapters of a book before deciding if I’m going to finish, save it for later or just completely discard it as it got too boring or I got what I wanted from it. Within the past 2 weeks, I’ve done this on dozens of books. It’s like watching a couple of episodes from a TV series on Netflix and deciding it’s not for you and moving onto a Movie or a different show. Now I can do this with Audiobooks and eBooks. Amazing as I love to fully ‘test drive’ before investing my valuable time into pursuing a valuable content.
How does this compare cost wise?
Like I mentioned before, with such services as Audible which are no doubt fantastic, you are purchasing only 1 book per credit. Depending on where you are in the world, this can range from $10-20 dollars. Comparatively, at the time of writing this blog post, Scrib only charges $8.99 for unlimited usage. I’m so impressed with this service. Yes, they do have a free service so and if you use this link, you’ll get 60 days free usage of their premium service. Remember I said to try before you buy. Even if you want to revert back to
Are they any drawbacks to Scribd?
The only drawback I’ve found so far is that, once my phone locks – I can’t seem to control Scribd using my bluetooth controls on my wireless earphones. I haven’t been able to figure this out but I do intend on hitting up Scribd support to get this addressed.
All my other audio applications such as Audible and Blinkst do respond to interactions coming into from earphones. Not Scribd (yet).
This is the only drawback I’ve found so far. Other than that, I love it.
What content does Scribd have?
Truthly speaking, till today I had only used the Audiobooks and Books section. Though it had been right in front of me, I never saw the Magazine, Documents and Music Sheet. Isn’t it funny you only see what you want to see in life.
How much does Scribd cost?
You can browse around and listen to snippets of books and read sections for free. However, to get the true value of Scribd, you do need to upgrade to the premium subscription. I always say this, try before you buy. By default, Scribd give you 30 days complimentary access for you to try Scribd to all of its content for FREE!
However, if you wanted to use my link, this can be extended for 60 days. Yes, so basically two months access to listen to as many books as you want and browse all of the eBooks and Magazines. If you’re like me, you’ll be hooked within days.
Click Here to Try Scribd Free for 60 days.
Conclusion
We live in an age we we buy Coffees everyday, subscribe to Netflix and Cable TV without even blinking an eye. An affordable Coffees can typically be $3-5. If you skip 2 of these indulgences a month, you can pay for your Scribd subscription.
