For that reason, I imagine a lot of us think we’re familiar with the Audible app. But what if I told you there were a bunch of features you might not be aware of?
Here are five Audible features you might not have known about. I certainly didn’t, and now I love them.
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Don’t cancel, put yourself on hold
If you’re anything like me, you’re constantly subscribing and canceling your Audible subscription to get the most from the frequent subscription sales. Or you might be one of those people who keeps a running subscription going regardless.
Either way, you often end up with credits you don’t have a current use for.
This isn’t usually a problem, but it becomes one if you want to cancel your Audible service. Those unused credits can only be used for as long as you have an active subscription, so you’ll need to use them before you cancel, paying Amazon money.
But there is another way to stop paying and keep your credits — for 90 days, anyway.
Audible offers monthly subscribers the ability to pause their subscription for up to 90 days, once a year. By doing this, you can keep all your credits, though you won’t get any new credits, and you’ll lose access to included titles until you start paying again.
This isn’t something you can do from your app, so you’ll need to do it from the website — though you can access that through your phone’s website browser.
To start, select your username from the top of the website, then select Account details > Pause membership. Then select Pause membership again to confirm.
You can only do this once per year, for either 30, 60, or 90 days. Also, yearly subscribers can’t use this option.
Hiding specific books
Nobody should yuck anyone else’s yum (within reason), but it might be your personal preference not to see specific books every time you open your Audible library.
Maybe you disliked a book and don’t want to see it, it’s something you’d rather people not see in your library, or you simply clean your list of everything you’ve already read. Very neat, well done.
Whatever the reason, it’s possible to hide specific audiobooks in your library.
To do so, open your library, tap the three vertical dots on the right side of any title, then tap Hide this title.
To get your hidden titles back, go into your Library, select Lists, and scroll down until you see the Hidden section. Then, tap the three dots again and choose Unhide title.
Set your speed for good
One of the joys of Audible is being able to change how quickly the narrator speaks using the built-in speed tools. If a narrator is particularly slow or fast, you can increase or decrease the speed at which they speak.
This is especially useful for non-fiction books, which don’t have lengthy descriptions and want you to understand a simple concept. Or, maybe it’s just how you prefer to listen to audiobooks.
Whatever your reasons, you can change how quickly your audiobook speaks on a book-by-book basis. But if you want to make a blanket increase or decrease for everything you listen to, you can do so in your settings.
Go to your Profile, and tap the Settings wheel. Then find Player > Narration speed. Pick your favorite setting, then tap Close to exit.
Customize your skip buttons
We’ve all done it: You realize you’ve tuned out the last few sentences, and all of a sudden, you have no idea what’s going on.
Or, someone rudely spoke to you while you were listening, and you aren’t able to parse two streams of conversation at once.
So now you have to go back.
No problem, that’s exactly what the skip buttons are for. But going back 30 seconds is a bit too far. It’s just far enough for your mind to wander again, and for you to miss it. Again. Maybe this bit just isn’t that interesting?
That may be true, but you can also change the skip buttons to suit your needs a little bit better.
Go to Profile > Settings, and tap Player. Choose the Back(30s) Forward(30s) option, then choose exactly which option works for you.
Match Kindle books with audiobooks with Amazon’s Matchmaker
Amazon’s latest Kindle/Audible feature is Read & Listen, a mode that lets you read along with an audiobook.
While that may initially seem redundant, it supposedly boosts your ability to retain information, making it useful for students and lorehounds alike.
But to use it, you need to own both the Kindle and Audible versions of a title, making it twice as expensive as either method alone.
This isn’t something you can do in the app, but if you visit the Amazon Matchmaker web page, you can see exactly which of your Kindle e-books are also available on Audible, and for what price.
