Attention Audible Addicts

I’m an audio book addict. That’s what happens when you have to commute two hours every day. Before I discovered the awesomeness of Audible, I would buy comedy albums to fill the drive time. That got expensive and you didn’t get very much for your money. Then I discovered what podcasts had to offer and finally decided that if I was going to make the best use of my time in the car, I would listen to audio books. A writer’s got to read, right? Having a day job and family doesn’t leave a lot of time to read and write.

BUT…

What happens when you get a terrible audio book? They’re out there. Sure, Audible does a good job of letting you know about the product before you spend that precious credit, but every so often you get a bad one.

So, I asked myself – can I return a digital product? Turns out you can. Some of you may already know this, but I’m continually surprised talking to people who don’t know this. With the monthly subscription, you get one book for $14.95. Additional credits work out to about $10 each. If you’re burning through books, like me, the money can add up.

So far, I’ve returned about six or seven books. These were absolutely terrible. I won’t list them, but I feel the returns were justified. The one case I will cite is a book a that was the beginning of a new trilogy for a wildly successful sci-fi trilogy. I loved the main character of the first trilogy and could not wait to hear more. However, the author completely changed the formatting of his writing, and marginalized the main character to that of a small player in an ensemble of other characters. This was not made clear at all in the book’s description. Needless to say, I was disheartened the author tried to change his formula. This is when I discovered you could return audio books.

Here’s how you do it.

1. Log into Audible
2. Click on Account Details
3. Click on Purchase history
4. There, you will see a list of your orders. There is a button labeled “return” next to all of your books.
5. Click the “Return” button.
6. You will be refunded 1 credit within a few minutes.

There seems to be no limit to how many you can return. I’m not looking to press my luck. Again, I only do this with books I am highly disappointed with. I’ve gotten into heated discussion with people about doing this, but when you purchase a book and it does not live up to your expectations, as a consumer, I would like a refund. If people listen to my books and are disappointed, I don’t want them to be angry they spent money they can’t get back.