Elyse
wasn’t fond of Scribd when she tried it out, but Angela James and Jane have discussed it very favorably in recent podcasts.
Last November, I decided to give myself the three months to try it out using the Harlequin coupon, and, y’all, I flippin’ love this thing. As Angie pointed out in the podcast, HarperCollins and Harlequin both participate – which means that older Dorchester fantasy and science fiction romance titles are also in there, too.
Now that there’s a 3 month free trial for SBTB readers, I figured I’d write up my impressions of Scribd. My 3 month free trial has come to an end, but I’m renewing and paying the monthly fee, and I wanted to share my reasons why. So here are the six ways in which I get the most out of my Scribd subscription.
1. Backlist. Oh, holy night, Backlist.
As I mentioned HarperCollins and Harlequin are both in the Scribd borrowing library, as are many older Dorchester titles which were acquired by HarperCollins years ago. That means that in addition to authors like Sarah Morgan or Shannon Stacey or Eloisa James, there’s a lot of great fantasy and science fiction from Ye Olde Dorchester catalog, like Marjorie M. Liu and paranormal from authors like Christine Feehan or Sherrilyn Kenyon.
So my browsing habits have changed a bit as a result. There are a lot of backlist books I’ve wanted to read, and to be honest, some backlists are so big, it’s difficult to keep them all straight.
But if I think to myself, “Self, you would really enjoy a backlist Suzanne Enoch historical right about now,” well, there are plenty to choose from. FOUR PAGES of books to choose from, in fact. And I can add them to my library with 1 click, and drop them in a collection with one more. This does lead to Crap, which one do I read first? — which is a lovely problem to have.
Much like Prego, with Scribd, it’s in there.
2. What’s better than a bargain? A Scribd bargain.
When I get the daily sales newsletters and see what’s being offered for $1-3, my first step is to check Scribd. I’m always curious, for example, about a $3 cookbook. For $3, even if there’s only one recipe that I will reuse regularly, it’s worth the price.
But if that cookbook is already in the Scribd library, I’ve already paid for it. If I’m paying $9 per month, it’s well worth it for me to add discounted cookbooks to my digital library and not buy them at $1-3 each. In the long run, with my easily-tempted book buying habits, this is saving me a bit of money. I would spend way more than $9 on discounted cookbooks each month otherwise.
And it’s not just cookbooks. I now read my regular sales bulletins with my email open in one tab, and Scribd in another. If a book looks interesting, I add it to my Scribd library rather than buy it.
Here are two examples from a Book Gorilla newsletter from earlier this month:
If I’m chasing a bargain, my sequence now is to check Scribd and then my local public library’s Overdrive collection before I reflexively click and spend $1-$3 on sale books .
3. Sale books become search terms.
This is true of most retailer search engines, and not just Scribd, but sometimes when I search for a book, it’s not in the Scribd library – not often, but sometimes. However, usually I have enough of an idea of why I was searching for that book to go find something similar – and this is especially true of cookbooks, my discount kryptonite.
“365 Years of Comfort Food In Your Slow Cooker” or whatever may not be in Scribd, but “comfort food,” “slow cooker,” and similar searches yielded all sorts of ideas for my cookbook collection.
4. Business books? Nonfiction about efficiency? Organization guidebook? Efficiently organizing your business? Check, check, check, check.
My other reading addiction, aside from romance and discount cookbooks, is nonfiction about organization, efficiency, productivity, and time management. Those books, especially in digital form, can be seriously expensive. Sometimes the nonfiction ebooks are $25 or more, which, seriously, if it’s going to be that much money, it should come with free chocolate at least.
But yay! So many of the books I’ve been curious about are in Scribd, and I’ve already paid for access. And, thankfully, since many of the nonfiction about entrepreneurship and efficiency I’ve tried are really freaking terrible, I’m happy to toss them back into the Scribd pond once I’ve read a few chapters without berating myself for having spent $25 for a book that was not useful to me at all. (It’s amazing how many nonfiction business/entrepreneurship titles are so very very very male-oriented.) (Except not amazing at all.)
5. AUDIOBOOKS.
Scribd has audiobooks.
TONS OF THEM. Both nonfiction and fiction, with romance and mysteries and oh, the audiobook selection is fun. I’ve been listening to Yes, Please! read by Amy Poehler, which is terrific.
We’ve got a car trip coming up, and I’ve built a collection of actors reading their autobiographies that Hubby and I should both like, including Martin Short reading his memoir I Must Say, based on Glen Wheldon’s recommendation in a recent Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast. And the audiobook of Shit My Dad Says should be funny enough to listen to – though I wouldn’t have paid full price for it (and maybe the kids shouldn’t be in the car with us for that one).
So for $9, you can get a library of Scribd audiobooks, which is a bit cheaper than the least expensive Audible plan, which start at more than $10 for most users. Not that I don’t love Audible – I do. I have a subscription there, too. But I’m tracking my usage to see which one I use more, because I may not need both.
And I have five more words regarding the audiobook selection at Scribd: Richard Armitage Reading Georgette Heyer.
If you only keep your Scribd subscription for the three free trial months, do yourself a very kind favor and make sure to listen to at least one of them. They’re wonderful.
6. My kids love it, too.
I have reached that age of young boyhood with the dudes in my home where they are eating all the time, outgrowing shoes every three months, and reading more than they eat. The books my sons love to read, and the audiobooks and ebooks they like are in the Scribd library, too. I set them up with their own collections, and added the app to their tablets.
So far in their collection, which they LOVE, they have The Big Nate series and the My Weird School series. Plus they like browsing the children’s audiobook collection, too. The Scribd app is easier for them to navigate than the Overdrive app, which my 9 year old can manage but baffles my 7 year old every time.
It’s worth the $9 fee to have an ever-growing pile of books for them to read or listen to, especially since their collection is part of my account, so I can add books to it as I discover them, and see what they’ve been enjoying before they fall asleep. I just added Better Nate than Ever to their collection, for example.
Not everything is perfect, of course, so here are a few issues or questions I figure you might ask.
What about Kindle Unlimited?
I don’t have Unlimited Time, so Kindle Unlimited doesn’t work for me. Searching through Kindle Unlimited when so little of what I want is easy to find or even in the library in the first place was too frustrating. I wasn’t going to use my KU subscription as much as I thought, so I cancelled it shortly before the end of the free trial.
How is the Scribd reader?
It’s ok. It’s not as robust as some others, though I can set the text color scheme and size to the levels I prefer.
I do wish Scribd’s reader had an onboard dictionary. I like to look up words. No, I LOVE to look up words. It’s a thing. There’s no tap-tap dictionary within the Scribd reader, and I wish there were. But I have other methods, so it’s not unbearable.
What about your public library?
Oh, mercy, I use the hell out of my public library both in print and digitally using the Overdrive app. We’re regular patrons of our local branches, and Scribd doesn’t replace my local library at all.
But Scribd’s collection is often more in line with what I want to read, and our local library is long on literary fiction but not as much on romance, mystery and business/ entrepreneurship nonfiction. And if I do find a book in the Overdrive app, it isn’t available at my library, or has a long waitlist.
And to be honest, with HarperCollins’ 26 checkout limit on HarperCollins and Harlequin titles (SOB! SOOOOOOB!), I’d rather browse from Scribd so that someone else in our library system can borrow the metered checkout book my local library has paid for. I still harbor guilt that I borrowed two ebooks and didn’t finish them before my time was up, costing my library money for a book I didn’t read.
The question I ask myself has evolved from Do I want to spend $2? to Do I already have access to this book via Scribd or my library? I like that evolution. I am better able to gauge my interest in a book from “mild curiosity” to “MUST OWN” compulsion. And on top of that, I can evaluate whether I want to read this book RIGHT NOW RIGHT AWAY or if I want to take a look at it someday, maybe on vacation.
Between Scribd, my library, and my book budget, I can assign the book to the appropriate location. If I must own it, I buy it. If I am curious but not compelled, I check Scribd and the Overdrive Media app. If I must read it RIGHT NOW and it’s in my local library, I check it out and start reading. If I want to read it someday, and it’s in Scribd, I’ll add it to my library and put it in a collection. I probably won’t check it out of the library because if I can’t get to it right away and my checkout expires, I’ve either made someone else wait for it, or, even worse, cost my library one of a limited number of checkouts
(Hey, HarperCollins, may I please tell you how much I dislike your ebook limited check out policy and find it offensive to everyone including small dogs and chinchillas? You publish great books. Your limiting access to library patrons is a serious bummer and I wish you’d reconsider that policy.)
Can you browse Scribd? Didn’t Elyse struggle with that?
Yup, she did. And you can browse – sort of. It’s better if you know what you’re looking for when you head into the Scribd library. There are curated lists, and there are sections by genre, but I find better options for my collections when I go in looking for one thing, and start following the also-like recommendations to other books and audiobooks.
Plus the Romance page at Scribd highlights collections like….Pirate’s Booty
And, hello, I found this when I was browsing to take screencaps for this entry: some St. Martin’s romances are also in Scribd, now:
Now I want to go browse around in that section of the site and add books to my “Take a Look” collection.
So that’s how I get the most out of my Scribd collection, though I still find new ways to use it. The three months free for Smart Bitches readers is still going on, so if you’d like to try it out, you should have enough time to get a sense of whether it’s useful for you to subscribe, too.
Have you used Scribd? Are you interested in trying it? Can I answer any questions for you?
Interesting article – thanks! 😀 So may I ask – how do you access your books? By that I mean do you have to have the app on a tablet/computer you can’t get your Scribd books on an ereader to read?
I am enjoying my Scribd free trial a lot more than I thought I would. All the backlist available is amazing, and there a lot of books I wouldn’t have expected, like Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey or Philippa Gregory’s novels. There are also a TON of Bold Strokes’s lgbtq romances, which is AWESOME because Bold Strokes novels are rarely in stores, never in libraries, and ebook prices never drop.
However, if you don’t have a tablet (I don’t), you’re stuck reading on your phone. Now, this isn’t too bad. If you switch the screen to the “night” white lettering on a black background, and turn the brightness all the way down, it’s not too bad. Even on my tiny iPhone screen, you eventually forget the medium and just read.
But with Overdrive, you can have the ebook sent to your ereader with just a few clicks. Yeah, in demand books will be on your hold lists for weeks to months, but if you just feel like reading something right away, you can limit your search to Genre (or not), then Available Now titles, and then order the results by Most Popular, rather than Recently Added, which is the auto setting. Granted, they’re older titles, but I searched my branch yesterday and there were JoJo Miles, Courtney Milan, and Christine Feehan titles. So, not perfect, but ereeader comparable and free! Also, there are audiobooks.
So, though I’m enjoying Scribd for now, I probably won’t stick with it after my trial is up.
*I meant “[Overdrive is] ereader compatible.” Dang autocorrect!
Anyone have any feedback on using Scribd outside of the USA?
I am really enjoying my Scribd subscription. I started my account just before the promo codes were obvious, so have paid all along ( and would really like a code). Yes, I have to read on my tablet, rather than my kindle, but the choices! Apart from the backlist glom I like the bestseller options- sometimes I find books I might otherwise have ignored. Also the cookbooks! Yay since I would have used the iPad for those anyway, it’s awesome they are covered in the subscription.
A couple of caveats. The harlequin back list goes up to about 2013- so there are two series where the penultimate and ultimate books aren’t there, but the rest of the series is. This is irritating.
Scribd is available to non US readers ( which is not true of most subscription options). However, not all of the books are available overseas. Harlequin is not available everywhere. And how does it determine location? By the networks accessed by your device. So theoretically if you took your US tablet to Europee for a few months, you could find your Scribd books changing. This is NOT evident in the sample selection- a lesson I learned the hard way. So if you live in say NZ, and you want to join Scribd for the Harlequin backlist, hopefully there is something else you want, because that won’t be there.
Yes, I had very low expectations with the coupon working outside of the US, but lo and behold, it did! I think scribd is great for backlists (Loretta Chase, here I come!). I was also pleasantly surprised about the diversity of what’s on offer and I found it way more interesting than kindle unlimited. My only issue is that I downloaded the app on my phone and my kindle fire, but I couldn’t download all the books (well, only one didn’t work actually so far) in both gadgets.
I agree a dictionary would be great and it’s better if you know what you are looking for.
Do you have to have wifi or cloud access to listen to the audiobooks, or do they download to the Scribd app (like they do to the Audible app)? (I didn’t see the point in investigating Scribd for myself before, having an anxiety-producing TBR and residing outside the USA as I do, but now that they’ve added a ton of audiobooks I’m much more interested.)
I love Scribd – I’ve found many authors, books and series that I never would have read. the backlists are great. My book purchases are now – 1) see a book I’m interested in but don’t know the author 2) check scribd for author, if she/he is on there – read a different book if they don’t have the Book I’m interested in 3) then read all the authors books on Scribd 4) and a few days later buy the book I was originally interested in purchasing. Occasionally I discover that the author’s writing style isn’t my cup of tea and I’m happy to not have purchased the other book. It all works out in the end. Best 8.99 ever spent (per month).
@MsBookjunkie: audio books can download to your device. I’ve listened both streaming over WiFi and from a download. Both worked fine for me.
@Willa: I have a Note 3. It’s a big phone – or phablet – and most of the time I read on that in whichever app I am using at the moment.
Scribd has apps for iOS and Android phones but I do not think it is possible to get the Scribd books on an eInk reader.
I’m in Sweden and I signed up for the three month tree trial and so far I love it. I was skeptical at first because of what I’ve read about limitations for users outside of US, but so far I’ve only looked at one book which I could not access due to international access or whatever the notification said (though I read mostly m/m romance and historical western romance, for the former the access is more than sufficient regarding authors I want to read).
Since I signed up I have not bought a single ebook anywhere, and between the low value of my country’s currency (in comparison to the US dollar) and the VAT regulations for EU residents that came in place in the new year this is a very favorable way for me to feed my romance reading addiction. I still use my local library, but Swedish libraries don’t really carry much romance fiction and not any m/m romance at all.
So far the app has worked well when I use it on my Nexus 7 and I am quite satisfied with the options available with fonts, line space and margins and so on – I’m not a picky reader, and when reading print books you don’t have any choices at all.
The only niggle for me is that I can’t look up words as easily as I do with my Kindle and that the Kindle is laying around unused (and I only got it four months ago).
I believe that I will keep the subscription when the free trial is up.
Richard Armitage reading GH? Where do I sign? 😉
I’m from the Philippines and our libraries don’t offer a lot of books for a voracious romance reader like me, so Scribd has been great. I’ve been reading a lot of my favorite authors’ backlist and their audiobook selection is good too. For $9, which translates roughly to around 400 pesos in my currency, it’s definite deal.
@SpinsterCoveResident:
Ok, first, your username is making me grin like a doofy fool. HA! Second, even though they are abridged, they are incredibly good. I’ve listened to each one multiple times, and wish he’d do more of them.
Scribd is a fantastic idea, and I’ve already read several books since signing up on friday. I’ve also found a lot of books I want to read, although some books in my TBR are unavailable on Scribd.
If only it was possible to read the books on my Kindle, I would be absolutely sold on the idea of continuing the membership. But as someone who never thought I would start reading ebooks, but has come to love my Kindle paperwhite for looking so much like paper, I just find reading on my iPad to be less than ideal. Undecided for now, happily I have three months to test it and see!
I just purchased a Kindle Fire 6 during their recent sale to replace my first gen iPad. In fact, I received it just last week. [For the past four years most all my reading is done on my much beloved Kindle Touch.] Your SBTB coupon for Scribd showed up just as I received my Fire, and I jumped on it. While I had a bit of trouble initially with figuring out how to access their books, I have really enjoyed what I have found. I have only read and listened to Scribd materials on the Fire; it works fabulously and I love it! For someone who is notoriously cheap (frugal?), I am really thinking about keeping the subscription. Like Sarah, I typically see sales, read reviews, look at my four (yep) different libraries online and decide what to do. Now I get to add Scribd. No need to hunt for backlist and current Carla Kelly, no need to purchase more Georgette Heyer, in print or audio, no need to hunt for audio that I will need to download onto a smaller device to take in the car. It’s now all on my lovely Fire. Thank you for coupon — and for the excellent suggestions in this post for making the most out of Scribd.
I was so confused because I read it as: “Six Ways How to Get Out of a Scribd Subscription”. Not enough sleep I guess….then when I realized, I thought “Why not use Overdrive’s digital library, it’s free?” and of course Sarah you’ve covered that point as well. I either have to drink more coffee or go back to bed.
Great post, but I don’t think Scribd is for me. I read e-pubs on my Kindles and I have access to Overdrive through five public library systems. It’s rare that I wait longer than a week for a new book, but then I check daily for new listings.
If I start writing about how very much I am enjoying Scribd, you will find me doing a happy dance in mid-exclamation. I don’t know why Scribd’s one month trial codes didn’t tempt me, perhaps I thought set up and cancellation would be overly complicated.
My book budget is $30.00 per month. I trolled Amazon daily for free books and must say that doing so certainly broadened my reading and many of the books I read that were self-published by authors who have never been traditionally published were excellent.
Since Scribd, I have not checked Amazon’s free bestseller lists once. I have read 10 novels, found the text for a MOOC I’m watching (score!) and last night started a non-fiction about the discovery of red dye that I’ve had on my list for years. So. Will I subscribe? I would be a fool not to at double the price.
I bought an iPad for other reasons and what a surprise when I accidentally discovered kindle application, free books, etc. (I love technology, but I am a bit slow to adapt…) I have never read on a kindle, although the paperwhite has my full attention. Or, I should say, had my full attention. I wish there was a way to pay Amazon a small fee to read other content on their e-reader. It can’t be too difficult, with all the web pages available to save to kindle.
As others have mentioned, Scribd search is goofy: Lastname, Firstname will give different results than FirstName Lastname. Search is slow, and turns up odd items such as UCC filings. Who subscribes to Scribd for UCC filings? Backlists are incomplete, one example, Lisa Kleypas’s Wallflower series does not have A Wallflower Christmas available although it was published in 2008. Quibbles.
My big concern about Scribd is for the authors. I read somewhere that if a Scribd subscription book is not read to a certain point, the author is not paid. What happens, then, with cookbooks? If I browse the Table of Contents and then the Index, go to a recipe or two and decide I’m not interested, the author is not paid? Is that fair? What if I use one recipe?
I am not a writer and I do not want writers to stop writing! Why did Scribd need $22 million in additional funding? Is it not paying for itself? Are they going to improve the search function? Coax the two holdout publishers into participating? Suddenly I have a great interest in Scribd’s financial success.
So, would you say Scribd is like Netflix for books? Your subscription fee gives you access but if you quit, your library of preferences would be lost & you lose access to the material.
I just renewed my Scribd subscription for a whole year–this option is really a steal because it works out to about $4 per month. I’m surprised at how much I’m able to read on my phone without any more eyestrain than my Kindle Paperwhite. I use the night background which works in all settings except bright sunlight. I have a hard time finding titles using the basic search, for instance sometimes I find a book listed by author but not title or vice versa. Still I’m finding plenty to read and listen to.
I’ve begun checking Scribd, too, when I get the book sales newsletters like BookBub. Older books and self-published titles are often there. Of course, I now have an even longer TBR list.
@ Kelly. It’s similar. You don’t lose your library or your preferences, just like in Netflix. You do lose some access, obviously. You’re paying for the use of their library, not the books themselves.
Scribd has been magic for me. I primarily read on my iPhone because then I can read anywhere. I’m on the go a LOT with a baby at home, and having a dedicated ereader just isn’t very efficient, since I would only be able to use it for a small portion of the day (I can’t stealth read at work on an ereader like I can on my phone). SO. With that in mind, I read Scribd books all the time. My buying habits have plummeted, but that’s good for me, because saving money = win.
Overdrive/library isn’t really a good option for me because my library system is horrendous when it comes to genre fiction. And on Overdrive, it’s so hard to check books out. Then I have to read books on a website format, because there’s no dedicated reader? Which I find tedious. Compared to that, Scribd wins for me because it’s easy to use, and I can take my time reading books. The search does need work, though.
I’m not from the U.S. and have subscribed to Scribd for about a year. For the most part, this had worked well for me. I’m still finding enough books each month to well justify the subscription cost.
Re the search capabilities – I agree that they are limited. However, I’ve fallen across some great choices by following the titles displayed under a book with the heading Related Books (or something like that).
From my perspective, there remain a couple of gripes about Scribd.
The first is that books may disappear.
When I first subscribed, I read a bunch of very old Mary Balogh titles and was ecstatic, because they were not available to me in ebook format anywhere else. Even though I had them stored in my library for a re-read, one day all but two disappeared. And that has also happened with other books.
The second gripe is regarding books that are promoted, but prove to be unavailable to me. That happens too often.
Finally, I’ve found Customer Services to be great, providing prompt and helpful replies.
I’m from Finland and signed up for Scribd in December. So far I’ve enjoyed it. It’s very rare that I come across a book not available in Finland.
Scribd is easy to use, and I love it. It has a few problems and things that need work, but I’m still in the “what should I read next, gimme more” part. Even more now that Marvel started working with Scribd. X-Men, Avengers and Doctor Strange! Graphic Novels! Love it!
I too miss the onboard dictionary (I like looking up words), and the browsing is somewhat clunky, and my Android doesn’t like the audiobooks function, but Scribd is mostly a positive experience for me.
First, let me just say many, many thanks for all you do. I found your site a few months ago and I have read sooooo many great new books because of y’all. And, I am really inspired by this community of smart, witty, and fun women!
I’m about to finish a three month trial of Scribd and I LOVE it. I plan to purchase a subscription when my trial ends. I’ve read so many books that I would have never tried otherwise in the last few months and have been very pleasantly surprised by how much variety they have on Scribd. I recommend it!
Finally, a question. Could you make some specific recommendations for business/leadership/management books? I’m currently taking a Master’s class in HR/Organizational management and would like to do some reading on the side, but am completely overwhelmed as where to start.
Hey Sarah: thanks for the great site and for all the great recommendations! Would it be possible when you recommend a book that you note if it is available via Scribd? Thanks
You can earn free time at Scribd by liking their Facebook and Twitter pages and by inviting friends. Look under your account tab on Scribd for a list
How long will the free trial code be good for? The next few weeks are crazy for me at work so I’d prefer to wait to start my trial until I can actually do some reading!
Canadian here, I tried out the 3 month deal late last year and loved it. I would have subscribed but I really don’t have time to read that much. Maybe when I win the lottery 🙂 . The price is very reasonable and the selection of books appears enormous to my book-greedy eyes.
@Jen:
The trial will be valid until 14 March 2015, but there is a Harlequin coupon that’s good until October: HarlequinLovesScribd
That is a great idea – let me see if I can do that. Thank you!
Hey Christina! Welcome! It makes me SO happy to hear the site has helped you find great books! That’s awesome!
I don’t read a lot of management books – I don’t manage anyone. Except myself. And my dogs. And maybe my kids when they’re listening. I read a lot of entrepreneurship/creativity nonfiction about inspiration and idea development, focus and self-organization, that kind of thing. Would that help or is that too far off from what you’re looking for?
While it sounds great, I have so many books on my kindle, it just wouldn’t be worth it to me.
I signed up for the 3 month trial over a month ago, and have been really enjoying it. I am not a big graphic novel reader, but for those who are interested, they just added a ton of graphic novels and comics. I’m using it mostly for backlist historicals and I’m finding plenty of stuff to read. I was undecided about keeping it, but since Hannah just said the annual fee comes out to only $4 a month, that would be worth it. The offerings don’t seem to overlap much with what’s available at my library. The search results are sometimes a little wonky, but I’ve gotten the hang of it. As far as the screen view, if you tap on the “Aa” in the upper right hand corner of any book page, there are options for text size and style, brightness and background color.
Ah, you found Richard reading Venetia. Could any voice possibly hold any more chocolate?
Ok – wherever possible, we will include Scribd links when we mention a book. Thank you for the suggestion– and thanks to Wax for making the programming happen!
[…] Getting the most out of a Scribd subscription. […]
Sarah, you mention that your children enjoy Scribd as well.
Do they have child-accounts set up, or do they have their own subscription?
I have already saved much more than my monthly subscription would have been by using Scribd, because when I read a review of a book I think I would like to read, I check whether it is in Scribd before I look for it in Amazon. I have also enjoyed re-reading some books which I own in print but which I cannot lay my hands on at once.
The audiobooks are a real bonus! One thing: I wish that the Scribd player had a sleep function, because I like to listen to old familiar books (like Georgette Heyer) as I’m going to sleep, and I can’t if the player isn’t gong to switch itself off.