So you’re thinking about listening to audiobooks, but you’re not quite convinced it’s a good idea? Some people may have recommended audiobooks to you, while others might be warning you about them or telling you it “isn’t even reading.” So what’s the truth? Well, the truth is that there are pros AND cons of audiobooks.
There are advantages to listening to audiobooks, and there are also a few things that might make you decide it’s not for you. So to help you make an informed decision, here are all the reasons you might like audiobooks as well as all the reasons you might not!
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The Pros and Cons of Audiobooks: Quick Summary
Before we get started, let’s just take a quick look at a summary of all the pros and cons of listening to audiobooks. We’ll discuss each item in more depth in a minute, but for now here’s a bird’s-eye view of what you need to know about audiobook pros and cons:
| Pros of Audiobooks | Cons of Audiobooks |
|---|---|
| Allow you to multitask | Narrators can influence how you understand the story |
| Brings books to life | You might not like the narrator |
| Can be really fun | Can be difficult to follow if you’re distracted |
| Help you know how to pronounce difficult names from books | Can be more difficult to go back if you didn’t understand something |
| Give you a new or different perspective | Scanning and skipping sections can be more difficult |
| Can be helpful for visual impairments | Going back to review details can be harder |
| Can be easier than books | You might not know the spelling of places, characters’ names, etc. |
| Have a fixed time limit | You need a device to listen to audiobooks on |
| Help you try new things | You need the device’s battery to be charged |
| Don’t let you stall in your reading | Can be more expensive than print books or ebooks |
| Don’t take up space in your home |
Pros of Audiobooks
Now that we have an overview, we’ll start with the advantages of listening to audiobooks. Here’s why audiobooks are a fantastic addition to your reading routine:
1. Audiobooks allow you to multitask
While when you’re reading a physical book or ebook you have to keep your eyes on the pages, when you’re listening to an audiobook you can do other things at the same time!
There are so many things you can do while listening to audiobooks, from chores, to commuting, to exercising, to gardening, and so much more! This is one way that audiobooks are definitely superior to reading for yourself.
2. Audiobooks bring books to life
While our imaginations can help us bring books to life as we read physical or digital books, audiobooks can bring the books to life in a different way. When the narrator is good, it’s like being immersed in the story and can even feel like you’re there with the characters!
3. Audiobooks can be really fun
Similar to the above point, with a good narrator audiobooks can also be just plain fun!
Harry Potter read in a British accent? The best! (for this American-accented reader, anyway). Books where the narrator “acts” out the scene by doing different voices? Amazing!
Sometimes audiobooks also incorporate music or multiple narrators, so there’s all sorts of ways that audiobooks can make the reading experience even more fun!
4. Audiobooks can help you know how to pronounce difficult names from books
Ever read a book and just kind of skip over each time you read a character or place name because you don’t know how it’s pronounced? Well, audiobooks can fix that!
Assuming that the narrator has actually done their due diligence, you’ll be hearing character and place names said out loud frequently…which means you can now go impress your friends by knowing how to say all those difficult names! (Here’s looking at you, fantasy books!)
5. Audiobooks can give you a new perspective
When someone else is reading a story to you, it’s a whole different experience and can give you a different perspective on the book.
For instance, some narrators might emphasize certain words or phrases in a way you wouldn’t have thought to. Or maybe they read lines with different emotions than you would have if you were reading it to yourself. This can help you see the characters and stories in new a new light, through the eyes of someone else!
6. Audiobooks are helpful for people with visual impairments
Another of the best benefits of audiobooks is that it helps people with visual impairments or other disabilities be able to read. They can be an awesome way to open up the world of reading to those who might otherwise be excluded!
Additionally, they’re helpful for people who for other reasons aren’t able to read too…like having focusing issues when trying to read, or for little ones who haven’t yet learned to read. It’s so fantastic for everyone to have access to books through audiobooks and all the other reading formats available today!
7. Audiobooks can be easier than books
Similar to the above point about audiobooks making books more available to those who wouldn’t otherwise be able to read, audiobooks can sometimes also simply be easier to listen to than books are to read.
This might be because you process and learn in an auditory way, or might even be because you don’t have to deal with holding books, turning pages, etc. (which can be tough for people with arthritis, carpal tunnel, etc.). Whatever your particular case, there are many reasons why audiobooks can be easier than reading a physical book.
8. Audiobooks have a fixed time limit
When you start reading a book, it can be hard to know how long it will take you to finish it…and the same goes for each of the chapters in that book! Audiobooks, however, have a fixed and known time limit which can make planning your reading session easier.
When you can look at the time stamp and see how much longer you have left in a book, you know exactly how long it’s going to take you to finish it. You can then plan accordingly for your reading/listening session and for whatever else you need to do.
9. Audiobooks can help you try new things
Another advantage of audiobooks it that they might be able to help you try new things—in face, for some of you just trying an audiobook might in itself be a new thing!
Sometimes holding a classic book or a really long book in your hands can feel overwhelming (especially if it’s heavy to hold!). Sometimes we just have a mental block for whatever reason about specific books we’ve been meaning to read but never get around to. Audiobooks can help with this, as listening to these books can sometimes feel less intimidating than committing to sitting down and reading them.
Or maybe you’re subscribed to an audiobook service, and they have books that look interesting but you wouldn’t normally try. This is another way audiobooks can push you toward variety and trying new things!
You never know what you’re going to discover and what you’re going to like when you try something new, whether that’s simply trying an audiobook for the first time or letting audiobooks be your way in to doing something you previously thought difficult!
10. Audiobooks don’t let you stall in your reading
You might also find that a positive of using audiobooks is that you no longer stall in your reading as much, or that you don’t get bogged down.
Especially in older books where there’s lots of different language or words we’re not as familiar with today, it can be easy to get stuck in the nitty-gritty of what each word means if you’re reading it yourself. But if you listen to an audiobook, you might find that you are able to understand the gist of the sentences and don’t need to stop as often!
11. Audiobooks don’t take up any space in your home
Audiobooks are also a fantastic idea because they don’t take up any space in your home, unlike physical books.
With audiobooks being fully digital and accessible from any phone, tablet, or computer you own, you can have an unlimited number of audiobooks in the palm of your hand! This is especially nice if you already own too many books, or if you’ve just organized your home library and don’t want it to turn to chaos again.
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Cons of Audiobooks
While there are plenty of benefits of audiobooks, there are still a few cons to audiobooks as well. Here’s what you need to know to determine if audiobooks are right for you:
1. Audiobook narrators can influence how you understand the story
In some cases and for some people, narrators giving you new perspective on a story can be a good thing. However, in other cases the narrators influencing your story might be a con instead of a pro.
Because different readers give different emphasis to phrases, words, emotions, and more, it’s likely that listening to someone else read will give you a different experience or understanding of the story than if you read it yourself. Like we said in the earlier section about the advantages of audiobooks, this can be good…but it can also be a con for those who prefer to interpret a story through their own lens by reading it themselves.
2. You might not like the narrator of an audiobook
Another detriment of audiobooks that many listeners report is that sometimes they don’t like the narrator.
Maybe the narrator isn’t a good reader, or maybe they just dislike the narrator’s voice. Maybe they’re not able to bring the book to life how you hoped they would. Whatever the case, sometimes certain narrators can keep you from getting fully immersed in the story or subject matter because of the way they talk, the way they read, and more. This can be one big reason not to use audiobooks! (Though it’s also possible you can find narrators you love if you try out other versions and other audiobooks.)
3. Audiobooks can be difficult to follow if you’re distracted
Audiobooks can also be a little difficult to follow at times, especially if you’re distracted while trying to listen or if you’re more of a visual learner.
It’s so easy at times to get caught up in whatever else you’re doing while listening, only to realize you didn’t actually hear or process the last few paragraphs! So while doing other things while listening to audiobooks is an exciting possibility, it doesn’t always work out—especially if the other task you’re doing requires some extra brain power.
4. It can be more difficult to go back if you didn’t understand something
Speaking of being distracted and missing sections of a book because you didn’t hear them, another sad reality of audiobooks is that it can be more difficult to go back to an earlier section if you didn’t hear or understand it.
Let’s be real, sometimes we get distracted while reading the text of books ourselves, too. But when it happens when reading a book, it’s usually pretty simple to scan back a few paragraphs to find where you got distracted. But this can be more difficult with audio, because you can’t really “scan” until you find the right section…you have to keep skipping back a few seconds or make a larger jump to an earlier section.
It can feel a little like you’re in the dark while jumping around hoping you hit the right section of something you remember hearing, but not toooo far so you have to listen to whole sections again. So if you find yourself regularly distracted while listening to audio and regularly need to skip back to listen again, then audiobooks might not be for you!
5. Scanning and skipping sections can be more difficult
Similarly, scanning and skipping sections in audiobooks can be more difficult than in their book counterparts.
Maybe you want to get the gist of a section without spending a lot of time, or maybe you want to skip a violent section, sex scene, or something else in a book. If you’re reading the book yourself, it’s pretty easy to skim through quickly or to skip sections you don’t want to read.
But audiobooks are a different matter, as we just mentioned with trying to go back if you get distracted. While it’s not impossible to skim (try speeding up the reading speed!) or to skip sections you don’t want to listen to, it is undeniable that it’s harder to do than when you’re reading the book yourself.
6. Going back to review details can be harder
Another related con of audiobook listening is that it can be harder to go back to review details later.
Maybe you wanted to review a section that has become a larger part of the plot now, or maybe you want to reference something that was mentioned previously. But unless you know the exact time stamp, it can sometimes be difficult to find those sections again.
I do like how Audible offers something called “Audible Clips”, which allows you to save sections of audio for your favorite quotes or to remember plot points and other details later. However, this does require you to have the prescience to know which sections you want to save ahead of time, which isn’t always easy to do.
So while there are some workarounds to help you review sections later, it still isn’t quite as easy as if you have a book in your hands and can scan through it to find the sections you’re looking for.
7. You might not know the spelling of places, characters’ names, etc.
The downsides of audiobooks also include that you might not know the spelling of places, characters’ names, and other details.
We mentioned earlier that one of the benefits of audiobooks is that you will definitely know how to pronounce difficult character names, place names, and other words. But the downside of this is that you might not know how those names or words are actually spelled.
This could be as simple as not knowing whether the character’s name is spelled Catherine or Katherine, or might mean not having even a clue of how to begin spelling the name of a town in a fantasy world! While this might not seem like a big deal to some, it can be a pain if you want to text friends or talk online about the books you’re reading but realize you have to keep looking up how to spell things.
8. You need a device to listen to audiobooks on
Another potential con of audiobooks is that you need a device to listen to them on. This shouldn’t be a problem for most people, with the prevalence of phones, tablets, and computers these days. However, for some people it might be a deal-breaker to have to keep a device with them when they want to spend time in their favorite book world.
9. You need the device’s battery to be charged
On the other hand, what might be a pretty big deal breaker for a lot of people is that you will need your device to be charged in order to listen to audiobooks.
If you’re used to print books, which you don’t need to charge before or while using, then adjusting to making sure your device’s battery has enough life left in it can be a pretty big change. So if you’re in the “I just want to read without worrying my book is going to die” crowd, then audiobooks (and ebooks) likely aren’t for you!
10. Audiobooks can be more expensive than print books or ebooks
Lastly, audiobooks are often also more expensive than the print or ebook version of the same book, so if you need a cost effective reading method then audiobooks might not be the best choice.
With the cost of production and the way royalties work for authors, audiobooks are just plain more expensive many times. For example, The Mysterious Benedict Society is currently $6.34 in paperback form on Amazon but it is $18.29 to buy the audiobook.
However, there are ways to get audiobooks for free and ways to get audiobooks for cheaper. Renting from your library is free, while Chirp is great for discounted audiobooks and Audible’s monthly subscription is usually far cheaper than buying individual audiobooks.
So there are ways to get around audiobooks being more expensive than print or ebooks, but it is still true that in general audiobooks are on the more expensive side!
Still not sure but want to try audiobooks for yourself to see how it goes? Get Audible free for 30 days!