Reigniting my joy for book reading

How listening makes you want to read more.

I have always admired people who read books consistently. The ability to devour books, one after the other, making up entire catalogs of titles. They also seemed to agree that through reading books, they gain knowledge and joy not found in a video on the internet.

I wanted to do the same. I have been getting the inspiration to start reading more; it stayed for a couple of weeks until it finally died out and I went back to my routine of watching YouTube videos and Netflix.

The pile of half-completed books 📚

Having these short peaks and lows of motivation, I rarely finished any books. No matter how much they piqued my interest initially, they were left to lay with the bookmark somewhere halfway in them.

Naturally, I had awkward discussions with friends who saw my small library and asked me about various books. It was a bit weird having to explain that even if I liked the title, I just didn't complete it to the end.

Listening to your books 🎧

A big change came for me when I learned about Audible. Or rather when I decided to pay attention to it.

For those under the rock, Audible is an app where you can listen to titles, often read by the authors themselves. There are positives and negatives to this method, but first a few words about how it works.

This is a paid subscription service, but in my opinion, it is more than worth the paywall, which gives you access to a specific promoted catalog of titles (those you can download and listen to for free) and 1 free credit per month. These credits you can use to buy new books to listen to. It doesn't matter if the title's duration is 1 hour, or 10, you still use 1 credit for it. So use it cleverly!

Something to keep in mind, since the process of creating an audiobook is a bit more difficult than simply creating a PDF file, you can expect audiobooks to be more expensive than normal books, or e-books. Basically, the price order from the most to the least expensive is as follows: audiobooks, physical books, and e-books.

Multitasking your book reading

So why would you choose to listen to an audiobook, instead of reading it?

First of all, because you can do other things while listening. Most of the people using Audible do that during commuting to work, doing laundry, or washing the dishes. Basically, filling all these empty, useless hours, with something meaningful. There is not a more efficient trade of time than this.

Many people are concerned about the ability to comprehend an audiobook during doing other things, and this is a legitimate concern. To that I have to answer; it depends on the title. For most non-fiction and fiction titles, this is not a problem. If the audiobook is heavy and packed with information, then it can become really tough to stay concentrated and follow its flow. So, it might not be the best idea to attempt to listen to advanced psychology or astrophysics on Audible.

Another reason to prefer an audiobook, over a physical one, is if you are a slow reader like me. Inside Audible, you can set the listening speed from slower than normal —if you need to better comprehend the reading— all the way to times three the normal speed, if the reader speaks slower, or if you want to get through the information faster.

This simply means that you can go through books, in a matter of hours; an endeavor that would otherwise be impossible for me with a physical book, as a slow reader.

From my personal experiences, listening to books reignites my willingness to read as well. It keeps me consistent and interested in it. I keep checking off titles one by one, and this motivates me to keep going. This obviously has to do with the principle that you don't need motivation to act, but rather, that motivation comes from acting. More on that in another newsletter though.

Conclusion

Audible has a very big collection to find most of the titles you may seek. Like most app services, they offer a free trial to try it out, so there is no reason to do so. It is an app that offers to me the ability to finish books and it restores my hunger for reading again.

It is definitely a piece of software that I would recommend to everyone. It might not be for you, and that's ok. You can always cancel your trial at no charge.

Give it a chance, and it might change the way you perceive book consumption.

‘Till next time, stay productive! ⚡️