Audiobook Samples Now Available on Goodreads

20.04.2015 Nate Hoffelder 4 Comments

If you like listening to audiobooks then I have some good news for you.

Goodreads is in the process of adding audiobook excerpts to its website. Soon GR members will find free audio samples for 180,000 Audible titles on the book listing pages. Along with the option of reading a sample from the book, GR members can now also listen to an excerpt from the audiobook. The excerpt will (should) play in a pop up window the web browser, and if you like what you hear you can the title to your "want to read" list, or you can head over to Audible and acquire the audiobook directly.

Obviously this feature is not available for all titles listed on Goodreads, but when it is available you’ll find the listen button below the cover image on the left side of the page:

Goodreads told me that the new feature is only available on the desktop site, but not GR’s mobile site or its Android and iDevice apps.

I’ve tried a couple excerpts, and I can confirm that I could listen, pause, and resume the excerpts. Curiously, the audio excerpt doesn’t line up with the text excerpt; the latter was usually the first section of a book, while the former was chosen from some location inside the book.

I’m not convinced that was a good decision; the seemingly random excerpts  were more bewildering than intriguing. I spent more time trying to figure out what had just happened than wondering what was going to happen next.

To be fair, I generally hate dropping into the middle of a story, but if that doesn’t bother you thin I’m sure you’ll find the new excerpts very useful.

Goodreads