So I am a voracious reader, I never quite lost the part of me that as a kid would stay up to read just one more chapter, and then I’d hear the birds chirping and realise that I’d been reading all night and the morning was threatening to ruin a good time. I want to admit a dirty secret that I’m personally ashamed of. I have dog-eared pretty much every book I’ve ever owned. I know for a fact that Tori B Bearly and J. H. Laird are both positively disgusted with me for it. But personally I’ve always loved books that looked used. That felt lived in. A book that doesn’t look like it’s been read is a book that looks sad. That’s not to say I don’t treat books with respect but in an effort to keep the peace I’ve been increasingly moving towards reading digitally, where it’s next to impossible to dog-ear the pages.
So I have a decent selection of books on my kindle, but I’m always looking for ways to put less money into the pockets of Jeff Bezos so when I saw an advert for Scribd I immediately leapt at the chance to enjoy an enormous library of books all available on my phone. I signed up for their free trial, just popping onto the site directly, you can get 30 days free straight away, and you can cancel at any time during that free trial, and still get full access to the service during those 30 days. I actually managed to get a three month free trial, so do a quick google, because while I think the service itself is good enough that you’ll want to pay for it after the 30 days, by the end of the three months you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.
It does not have every book I’d like to read, but it’s got a truly robust and impressive library of ebooks, audiobooks and articles. It’s quick and easy to use, with little to no rigmarole, and it’s a simple and clean aesthetic design that prioritises usability and clarity. It works well both on desktop and on mobile and allows you to download books into local storage so that you can continue reading whether or not you have Wi-Fi/Mobile Data.
Personally I’ve already read dozens of books on the platform, and have no plans to stop using it any time in the future. It was how I read Ghost Hunters Adventure Club and the Secret of the Grande Chateau back in July 2021, and it introduced me to one of my favourite reads of 2022, Five Total Strangers by Natalie D. Richards, which was fantastic, and I’ll be reviewing in the near future.
I think it’s totally worth the price just because of the sheer volume of content, coupled with the fact that there are no hidden fees or extras that are placed behind a secondary pay wall. It’s an just a monthly charge of £10.99 (after the free trial of course). It is relatively quick and easy to cancel also. I’ve found that even a good app or service can be ruined in retrospect by either making it difficult to cancel, or taking your request to cancel as a challenge to sort of keep your business. Scribd has none of that.
I touched on the library before, and while it’s not boundless by any stretch of the imagination it has an incredible range of content to please pretty much any reader, I was particularly engrossed by their thriller and suspense options but honestly there’s a little bit of everything. You don’t even need to read because as I mentioned up top, they have plenty of audio books, I personally have never been able to get into them, which is weird because I love podcasts, as you can tell from this list, but yeah for the discerning literary connoisseur who loves listening rather than reading they have audio books a plenty.
You also aren’t limited to how much you read or listen to each month, I think in the first month I probably didn’t use it as much as I would like and got through maybe five or six books, then the next month to make full use of my extended free trial, I probably read closer to twenty, so the sky is truly the limit. You can read on the go, with or without internet, and with constant updates its truly worth it, and even if you don’t want to pay for it, I strongly suggest you take advantage of the free trial, maybe you’ll discover something new, or rediscover something old.
About the only complaint I could find, and even then it’s not actually an issue is that you don’t actually own or get to keep any of the books, but that’s such a small thing in comparison to the veritable cornucopia of books on offer that you can read at your own leisure.
Scribd is available for both Android and iOS and of course you can keep up to date with them by following them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and by checking out their website.
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