F
Title: Scribd
Genre: Contemporary/Other
Scribd is a digital library ebook service that offers more than half a million titles for $8.99 a month. Sounds great, right? I thought so, and then I was bitterly, bitterly disappointed. I was offered a three-month trial when the news of Harlequin's exclusive deal with Scribd was announced, so I figured, why not?
(NB: You can also get a three month free trial of Scribd at this URL using the promocode ScribdLovesHarlequin.)
I downloaded the Scribd app to my phone and created an account to try this puppy out. Like most of the Smart Bitches audience (I suspect), I really love to read. So easy access to half a million ebooks? My ears perked right up. But then perked down again. Sad ears.
The platform isn’t bad. Once it launched I immediately went to the romance category which had the appropriate pink vagina-flower banner.
When Harlequin signed a deal with Scribd, I was like, “Yes, I want me some Billionaire Tycoon Secret Love Baby Secretary Shennagian action!”
So I searched for Harlequin Presents. No dice. It brought up titles that had the word Harlequin in it, but no titles by Harlequin the publisher and no Presents. Well, okay.
Then I opened the browse feature, selected contemporary romance and figured I could sort by author and look for my Presents go-to’s—Maisey Yates, Sarah Morgan, Annie West.…
Except when you use the browse feature you can only sort by “Popular,” “Best-sellers,” and “Release Date.” You cannot sort by author, title or publisher.
There are also no subcategories. When I browse contemporary romance I get ALL contemporary romance. The overview page, as you can see above, lists some categories like “Hunky Athletes” and “Steamy Small Town Romances,” and offer a few books in those brackets, but I can’t drill down into say, New Adult or erotic contemporary (although Erotica is its own category—I’m talking like Maya Banks’ steamier stuff, for example).
So basically you’re left to sift through a lot of books.
And I’m still looking for my Harlequin Presents, people. I sorted by release date and scrolled, and scrolled and …WTF. The most recent Harlequin Presents offered by Scribd is from 2006.
That’s when I realized one real issue with Scribd. It’s seriously lacking new releases. In fact the only new releases I could find in romance were from self-published authors or very small publishing houses. Everything else was 2013 or older – which, obviously, isn't that old. I'm not calling your baby born last year “old” but in terms of book releases, 2013 seems like a long time ago.
You also have to know whether an author you like is in the Scribd catalog, I think, before you buy the service (yay for free trials, right?). Or, you have to be really good at keeping track of which author is with which publisher and which publishers are connected to the Scribd catalog and… look, I know some people can do that but I am not one of them.
I searched for one of my favorite authors, Eloisa James. Scribd was lacking her two newest novels (the most recent published in March, the one before that May of 2013). I only found one book by Monica McCarty, and it was a free novella she wrote in her Highland Guard series. Elizabeth Hoyt? No results.
Maisey Yates? Yes, Harlequin, but anything else, like the Penguin books? Nope. Of course not – they're not in there.
Grace Burrowes? Nada.
Basically, if the authors you like aren’t published by Avon or Harlequin, it’s dicey. (And that's if you can keep who is where all straight in your mind.)
I did find lots of backlist ebooks from popular Old Skool authors, but none of these are hard to find in most public libraries’ digital archives.
In fact, overall, I felt Scribd was a watered down version of the Overdrive Media App—except Overdrive has new releases and gives them to you for free.
I gave the IPad to my husband, who reads primarily sci-fi and fantasy, and he also searched for series and authors he enjoys and found many of them missing. No Dresden Files. No Sookie Stackhouse (SOOK-EH!), no Lost Fleet, no Honor Harrington.
When I did open a book, the navigation and features are similar to what you’d find on a Kindle or Nook app. Nothing exciting there—the problem was finding the book in the first place.
Basically, if you want a cheap ebook service, you’re better off using your local library’s digital lending service, and that doesn’t cost you $8.99 a month. If you know an author you like is in the Scribd catalog, then maybe this will work for you. If you really love deep Harlequin backlist, even better. But between the limited availability of authors I wanted to read and the really, really insufficient search options, I was seriously underwhelmed.
SO much exactly this! LOL! I signed up to grab some backlist stuff that I knew was written for HQN by a couple of authors I really like, but if I don’t know that much, I can’t find anything I want to read. If I *do* find a book by, say Maisey Yates or Molly O’Keefe, you can look at the “books like this” at the bottom, but Scribd’s engine isn’t very good at predicting what’s actually LIKE those books, and there’s no way to get to a bigger listing (so, for example, they’ll say “you might like these other SuperRomances…but there’s no way to see ALL the SuperRomances, even if you can find one.)
So…yeah, I’ll be one of those who cancels after the free trial period.
Thank you for this. I’ve been considering making the effort of finding out if the free trial is available to me (#nonUSfirstworldproblems), but I won’t bother. (And I really don’t need to add more stuff to my reading options when my New Year’s resolution of halving my print TBR is still unfulfilled…)
Just out of curiosity, has your husband read the Stephanie Harrington books? I adore them! Treecats! And the narration is phenomenal.
I have access to Overdrive at four different library systems. There’s no way I’d pay a fee to download books I can readily get for free. Just last month LAPL added over 500 books to the Romance section and most of them were Billionaire Tycoon Secret Love Baby Secretary Shenanigans from HQ. Oh and bundles….tons of bundles!
Thank you very much for cutting through the layers. I saw this offer highlighted elsewhere, but share ms. bookjunkie’s sentiment that what I would derive from Scribd would just accumulate in my good intention pile. As it were.
So, for me it’s another case of procrastination paying off. You were diligent so I didn’t have to be. I’ll feel momentarily guilty, but know that it will quickly pass.
Scribd has some academic-type resources that public libraries often don’t. Not an issue for me, since I live close to a university rhat allows the public to use its library computers, but maybe for some people… However, like you say, it’s incomplete and hard to use. There must be better online academic resources.
I just signed up for the free trial Thursday night and I’ve gotta say that I am definitely not having trouble finding books to read. I downloaded it for the self-pubbed writers I knew were trying it out and for the massive amount of Harlequin backlist titles. I’ve been having success just plugging in authors that I have wish-listed or that I’ve heard good things about but never got around to reading. I’ve already read five books and I just found all of Penny Reid’s books are on there… so I’m gonna be busy for the rest of the weekend.
I will agree that their catalog organization stinks. And even their search function has bugs. Sometimes, I’ve found clicking on a book title and then clicking through the author’s name there will give more results than just the search function.
Also, I’ve found their customer service to be really polite and professional. I closed a book because the font was bugging me, got a pop-up messaging asking if I’d like to give feedback, thought “what the heck” and wrote an impromptu message about what I didn’t like about the font contrast. Then I got an incredibly polite email back the next day from the support desk that showed that they had tested what I had reported, had agreed with my assessment, and had passed on the suggestion for more contrast settings. It was really nice and I really appreciated it.
So, I’m really enjoying Scribd, despite it’s faults, and could definitely see continuing with it after the trial is up.
I’ve subscribed to Scribd for about one year and agree with many of your criticisms. However, I’m still paying up each month and will probably continue to do so while I am still accessing at least one book a week from that source.
I subscribed to gain access to books that are not released in ebook version in Australia. I don’t want to download them illegally, because I want the authors to get paid royalties, so I checked and Scribd seemed a reasonable option.
Sometimes the books I’m searching for are unavailable because they haven’t been released in ebook anywhere – so I’ve been pleased to work through a list of old Mary Balogh titles that I would otherwise have had to buy in paper second hand and then pay exorbitant handling and postage costs to receive where I live.
Sometimes (very, very occasionally) a more current book hasn’t been released in ebook in Australia but can be found on Scribd.
But I agree that the Scribd collection is often frustrating in its limitations. Using the old Mary Balogh titles again as an illustration, it is clear that they have not added any new offerings since I first subscribed.
And some titles have instead disappeared, which has made me wonder about copyright.
On the plus side, the customer service when technical problems have arisen subsequent to upgrades has been prompt, courteous, helpful and efficient. Response to queries re the collection has been less so.
Which leaves me wavering. But, as I said, if I now wish to buy a book I will always first turn to Scribd to see if it is available and I am successful often enough to justify the subscription fee.
When KU becomes available in Australia that may change. (Have you reviewed KU yet?)
I haven’t subscribed yet myself as my paid for TBR is too out of control to justify the cost.
But for those who have the free trial (or paid plan), there are some tips and tricks at Mobile Read
Library Addict: Thanks for the link. Very useful.
Hi Danker,
As a fellow Aussie I use Better World Books and Book Depository as both offer free shipping to Australia (yay!). Better World Books is mostly second hand and can be quite good for finding older/out-of-print books; Book Depository is new books (but sometimes they’re cheaper than local retailers). So if you can’t find a book you want on Scribd it might be worth looking at those two. Hope that helps!
Although I agree that some of the search could be better, and more features in the app would be nice, I totally love Scribd.
I think its a heaven for romance readers. Here is some of the things I found to make searching easier.
I follow the publishers I want to read books from. So right now I have 12. By following them, you find them in your profile and you can browse just that publishers books.
For Harlequin, I had the same issue with searching for the lines. I found that putting the search in quotation marks, like “harlequin presents” “carina press” “Silhouette Intimate moments”
and so on. I found that brings up pretty much just what I searched for. From there of course its mostly sifting through.
I don’t think there is much brand new stuff, but that doesn’t bother me. So many series and authors I am still working my way through. I found 2 year old stuff on there.
I do think they could improve there sub genres a bit. They took away my time travel romance subgenre listing they had at one point.
Here are the publishers I follow that publish romance books.
Harlequin
Simon and Schuster
Harper Collins
Kensington books
Sourcebooks
Diversion Books
Open Road Integrated Media
Belgrave House
Samhain
BelleBooks
epub Direct
Dreamspinner Press
I have to say though that I do most of my browsing not on the app on my Nexus, but on my computer and add them to my library. I also sort them in collections. I also have to use the previous app version 3.6.2 since they added huge margins with 3.7 and its bad to my eyes.
I joined Scribd way back in 2011 when it was owned by Facebook (I don’t know if it still is), it wasn’t a book service then but a place for Facebookers to upload word docs, presentations, files etc, and you could also embed those docs into your Blogger blog. That’s what I used it for.
I also joined Smashwords the same year as an author and now that Scribd has changed and SW distributes to them I was already on it, so it all blended smoothly.
I subscribed last week, and lost a lot of productivity as result- I read a pile of Kristan Higgans and Lynne Grahams.
I live in Australia, and the harlequin books are NOT available to Australian readers. This was not evident with the trial, that only gives you access to the initial chapters. But once this was discovered we emailed customer service to determine how they assign countries to readers, and cancelled that account.
Once they responded we created a new account on a computer with a VPN that said we were in the USA, and I read on an iPad that also has a VPN. to be super sure we paid with a US bank account.
It’s worth it for me, because many of these authors are a major PITA to buy in ebook format in Australia, or charge excessively ($12 for an ebook!).
My grade for Scribd is a B- and here’s why:
-No waiting lists for titles!
-The search function needs to be improved but isn’t much different from Overdrive (their search isn’t very powerful imo)
-Lots of kids’ titles availble to read aloud to my 8 yo
-Lots of repubbed backlist titles on Scribd (through Smashwords, etc) that aren’t in my Overdrive catalog
-Lots of Simon and Schuster backlist romance titles that still aren’t available digitally through Overdrive
I’ll continue to subscribe even though I have access to a large Overdrive library in my county.
Thanks for this review! I subscribed to Scribd over the weekend and so far I like it, although I can totally agree with a few of the things that you mentioned. The search function…WTF. If you know the author’s name it works OK but from what I can figure out you can’t sort the results and that is annoying. I too joined mainly to get access to Harlequin Presents and they have a lot that I have not read plus some of my old favorites so I am fairly excited. I have been able to find some newer ones, like I just found a Lynne Graham that says it was published in Jan. of 2014. But again, why can you not sort, by publication date for example??
Interesting to see the comparisons to Overdrive—I don’t know if I am using it wrong or if it is just a failing of my library system, but I find that Overdrive almost never has anything that I want, and anything they do have has at least a 1-month waiting list. Example: I searched Sarah Morgan on Overdrive through my library and they have one title, part of an HP bundle from 2013, and there are 27 patrons ahead of me on the wait list for it. Scribd has over 50 titles by her. Also agree about the kids titles, they have a lot of the classics for read-alouds so that adds to the value for me. Overall I think I will keep it. Definitely won’t replace my regular Kindle purchases and I might feel differently once I have worked through some of this backlist, but for now I’m happy with it.
It’s so funny that you should say this because I adore my Presents imprint as well. But here’s the difference… I’m old school. All of my oldies and favorites from the 90s and early 2000s were here. The books that I can’t find via the library or would have to purchase on Amazon. Lindsay Armstrong, Jane Porter, Diana Hamilton…I found them all. And color me thrilled when I found some titles I hadn’t read and had all but given up looking for years ago. The search feature certainly could use some work, and new releases would be wonderful (still waiting for Johanna Lindsay’s Stormy Persuasion). But so far, the Scribd HQN backlist is a godsend for people on the hunt of out of print books.
FWIW I subscribed to Oyster a couple months ago after hearing it discussed on a Book Riot podcast and it seems to have pretty decent backlists for romance writers. Not comprehensive by any means but enough to make a good dent in the monthly bill from Amazon and/or Apple.
And for those who are frustrated or disappointed with their library offerings from Overdrive—I just spent five years working at my local public library and the person in charge of ordering the ebooks is very eager to hear from patrons. Most libraries have some sort of “suggest a purchase” form on their websites … and if they’re any good, they want to spend their money on titles that they know people want to read. Older titles are likely to be cheaper for them to buy, too, so they may be open to stocking up on a writer’s backlist if it’s available on Overdrive.
I am old old school, and have been looking for Harlequins from the 1970’s and 1980’s, so was happy to see a lot of these for my favourite authors, such as Charlotte Lamb, Sara Craven and Betty Neels. I don’t know if I will keep on with Scribd after the 3 month free trial is up due to time constraints (and an evergrowing TBR pile, which I hold Smart Bitches and Dear Author responsible for 🙂 ), but am enjoying it now.
I, admittedly, like Scribd. It has most of those scrubby, trashy novellas that are .99, 1.99, or rarely 2.99 that I can’t help but buy but that I don’t really want to own. Those add up over time. Also, it has all of those old romances you wished you had but left behind in a move, the ones your library doesn’t always have or have available, e.g. Dancing at Midnight by Julia Quinn or Secrets of a Summer Night by Lisa Kleypas. I’ve found it’s worth it just for the back catalogue that I can’t afford to haul around with my as an itinerant student.
Super surprised to see an F grade for Scribd—I love it. The search function does suck, but I have been reading like an insane person since I subscribed (finally got around to trying out early Suzanne Brockmann, which was awesome). I like it tons better than Overdrive—my library has the /worst/ ebook offerings, I guess, because I can never find anything I want to read. 🙁
Wow… F grade, really? They are not supposed to be a completely exhaustive library of every book ever. Like Netflix doesn’t have every movie ever. Comparing to Overdrive also makes no sense. Unless you have a great library, I’ve found, Overdrive is pretty much useless. And Overdrive is beyond terrible with the search functions and ease of use. Sorry, but it just kind of boggled my mind that anyone actually enjoyed using Overdrive. What am I doing wrong??? Haha.
I would be super interested in someone doing a comparison of Amazon Kindle unlimited vs. Oyster vs. Scribd. Those seem like more apt comparisons than just your local digital library (which varies wildly for everyone). I an liking Scribd, but Oyster and Kindle unlimited do seem tempting.
Thanks for the very useful advice and suggestions already acted on – Helen RS and Atunah.
Baronesz1 – I agree. A comparison with other providers like Oyster and KU would be great.
Now for my head banging distress- since writing the above, the old Mary Balogh titles I mentioned seem to have all disappeared from Scribd, with the exception of one short story, The Anniversary. Enough to make me weep, as I’ve never figured out how to back-up my favourites. I would’ve thought these titles would stay, because my only alternative is to buy them second-hand, with no return to the author or publisher.
After nearly 5 months of thinking I canceled my subscription to Scribd, I find out I’ve been being charged every month by them. It is because of their manipulative formatting when trying to cancel your subscription that I thought I’d cancelled my account. I am outraged and feel cheated. I have taken all personal information off that site and I suggest people do not subscribe to them. It has cost me over 40 dollars for not even using the site.
4007 145691very good put up, i definitely love this web site, keep on it 825387
I don’t read romances but was looking for some older metal workshop practices books in pdf form and saw the “Smart Bitches” name show up in my Google results. Any man who doesn’t adore Smart Bitches is missing out.
I am always suspicious of these e-book download sites… Thank you for the review.
I just love Scribd and regularly buy books from there. I will recommend you all to buy books from scribd to appreciate the authors.