Audible Japan Changes to a Coin System
Audible Japan – my number one resource for listening to and shadowing Japanese for the past few years. My alarm went off this morning and I open Audible to continue listening to 自分に「ダメ出し」をしてしまうあなたへ, which I’ve been enjoying lately. I’m interrupted with a dreaded app message: “Audible Unlimited Listening is Ending.”
A horrible feeling in my stomach took control. What? No. Wait. You aren’t going to… My initial fear of the app ending was quickly replaced with what I knew was coming next. Audible Japan is ending its subscription model of unlimited listening. They are replacing it with a “coin” model. Sadness seeped in.
I wasn’t aware of this until now, but Audible Japan was one of the few (only?) countries that had an unlimited audio book listening model. The coin model has been used in America and elsewhere for a while now. But that doesn’t ease the pain. The sales pitch just made that pain I was feeling grow worse and worse.
For 1500 yen (~$14)/month, you get one coin. With that one coin, you can purchase an audio book. This is bad for me. I am a heavy listener. I go through at least a few audio books a week. So for me, that will raise the price of Audible Japan from $14 to at least $100+/month.
Deep Breath
Don’t worry, this isn’t where I go off on Audible. Because I still love it. And while the awesome freedom of this app has made me spoiled over the past 2 years, I understand.
Audible Japan was too good. 1,500 yen for unlimited audio books was an incredible deal for someone like me. Almost as good a deal as when Amazon Kindle Japan briefly had a period (which they seriously regretted and soon rectified) where they offered unlimited manga reading. Audible Japan provided a large bulk of my immersion and shadowing environment. All without the trouble of having to piece it together myself.
The content selection was good, the voice actors were great, and it was one of my most-used apps. However, I assume it was expensive to keep up and just wasn’t making enough revenue to keep it going. Or maybe Audible Japan did this as a trial 3-year period to get people addicted so that they would eventually switch over to a more sustainable model.
Looking at the bright side
First, it’s not happening until 8/20. That’s a month away and enough time to go on an audio binge. More importantly, there are some pluses:
1. You own the audio books. Even if you are no longer a member, you can still listen.
2. You get a 30% discount on books purchased past your 1-coin limit. I’m not sure how much individual audio books will cost, but this slightly softens the blow.
3. If you’ve been an Audible member, for the first 3 months of this new system you get an extra bonus coin for each of those 3 months.
4. There is a 30-day trial of the coin system (I’m assuming this also counts for current members?)
5. The last book you are listening to in August you automatically get for free.
6. You can exchange a book after you’ve already started listening to it (I’m assuming there will be some kind of limit)
The Real Positive
The above is making the best of an unfortunate situation. But the real shining plus is one thing I am excited about: more content.
There has been great content on Audible Japan up till now. But it paled in comparison with its Western counterpart. I always wanted more, and was often forced to just re-listen to my favorites until new content was released. Since new content came in the form of only a few new audio books a week, which I may or may not be interested in, re-listening was my main activity on the platform.
With the new coin system, they promise to bring in much more content (including popular best sellers in Japan). This is a huge welcome and makes me very happy.
Audible Japan?
It’s still a month away, so we’ll see how I feel about it once the transition is made. But I’m hoping it continues to be the first thing I still reach for every morning.
Founder of Jalup. iOS Software Engineer. Former attorney, translator, and interpreter. Still watching 月曜から夜ふかし weekly since 2013.
Thanks for the info Adam. I’ve never used Audible Japan before, but I do buy from Amazon Japan. I was trying to sign up for this audible membership and I keep getting the error:
Product confirmation
I’m sorry. An error occurred during processing.
Please try again after a while. If the problem persists, contact us please contact us.
Is there a reason for this occurrence? I tried both with and without a VPN (which is a great vpn that I pay for and runs Netflix perfectly). I also never have problems with my payment method.
Anyways, thanks for all the info!
That’s strange. Unless it has something to do with their big announcement switching the system over causing them to delay new memberships.
You were connected to the VPN, went to this link below, clicked on the trial membership link, and entered your Amazon.co.jp (not .com) credentials?
https://www.audible.co.jp/
And then after trying to purchase got this error right?
Ya, exactly, I even just tried it a few times on my phone with VPN and get this:
“We learn from failure, not from success.”
– Dracula, Bram Stoker
Its not you, its us.
If you are still having have problems let us know
I am definitely using my amazon Japan account and that link.
Are you using a credit card with a Japanese billing address? That is one of the requirements to join. I emailed their customer support to see if there was a way around it, but they weren’t able to make any exceptions.
I have been using Audiobook.jp instead. It doesn’t have near the selection, especially for fiction, but they have sales sometimes and you can download your books as mp3s.
I was hoping Amazon would change their Audible credit card policy along with this change, but it appears to be the same.
Yah, I have a Japanese address. I’m actually able to buy audiobooks for example. Perhaps I’ll give that other website a try…I just wish I could use PayPal because I hate using credit card on sites that I dont have a long history with or ar very well known. Thanks for the reply!
How long does it take to get good at understanding audiobooks? I can shadow just fine but every audiobook seems like an extremely dark dungeon that I barely understand anything of.
Also, if your goal is to get massive immersion in, the new system doesn’t look good.
What level are you Cajun(approximately)? That will no doubt have an effect. Also, how often do you read Japanese novels? I feel that reading novels would directly affect listening to novels over time. If you read a lot, your listening ability should increase faster than if you don’t read much. I also think that what your priority is will increase the quickest; for example, listening to the news tons will improve your news listening ability more quickly.
It depends on the type of book. Ex. Novels are harder. Motivational self-help books are easier. Regardless, it takes practice, because it is not a type of listening you are familiar with.
Thank you for the timely PSA. Time to see what the prices are like.
At the risk of sounding like an advertiser, Audible’s competitor, Audiobooks (formerly Febe) apparently still offers unlimited listening for 750 yen/month. Haven’t tried it, though.
https://pages.audiobook.jp/lp/unlimited/
Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll definitely give it a try.
Anyone else can’t visit the new audible website? It says it’ll take a minute to load but nothing happens.
I had the same problem at first, but it seemed to work after the second load of the app. Are you still having the issue?
Has anyone has luck signing up for Audible.co.jp who doesn’t live in Japan? It seems their sign up form still has “Japan” in an un-editable state. Has anyone tried a V-Precal prepaid card or similar?