Here’s an experience gift idea for the bookworms on your gift list: Libro.fm audiobooks!
Many people are hoping to receive experience gifts rather than “things” this year. In fact, one survey found that going into the holiday season, 92% of people hope to receive an experience gift.
Do audiobooks count as an experience? I see why it’s hazy. You don’t have to go anywhere to enjoy it like a restaurant gift card or membership to a zoo. However, audiobooks tick the major boxes for experience gifts: something to spend time enjoying, and not creating clutter or using up environmental resources.
Audiobooks are also popular, with sales consistently rising every year, and over half of Americans surveyed reporting that they’ve listened to an audiobook. I’m on board. I personally read 50-60 books per year, of which at least half are audiobooks.
As for Libro.fm specifically, it is not only a wonderful alternative to Amazon-owned Audible when it comes to audiobooks, but a lovely company and great audiobook experience for listeners.
Why Libro.fm – and what is it?
If you’ve spent any time at all investigating audiobooks, you’ll know that Amazon-owned Audible dominates the market – it currently makes up almost two thirds of sales. Due to labor practices, environmental destruction, tax avoidance, and myriad other reasons, I’m trying to avoid buying from Amazon. So when I discovered Libro.fm as an Audible alternative I was ecstatic!
Libro.fm exists to connect readers to audiobooks while supporting independent bookstores. Therefore, it shares profits from audiobook purchases with your chosen bookstore. It is a Social Purpose Corporation, Certified B Corp, and is 100% employee owned. Awesome!
But do they have the books? Yes! Yes they do. They offer over 600,000 audiobooks and I’ve found most things I wanted to listen to available, with some exceptions for small indie authors and obscure titles.
Pricing is very reasonable and comparable to other audiobook outlets. You can purchase credits without a membership at a rate of $15 per credit. Or, purchase a monthly membership of 1 credit per month at $14.99, and get two bonus credits when you sign up. Two credits per month gets you a 20% discount. One advantage I’ve found over Audible is that you can keep unused credits, even if you cancel your recurring membership.
How to gift Libro.fm
There are two ways to gift through Libro.fm: audiobook credit bundles, or individual audiobooks that you select. If you don’t have a specific audiobook in mind for your recipient, I would definitely recommend gifting the credit bundles, which can be 2, 3, 6, 9, 12, or 24 credits, all at a rate of $15 per credit.
When you purchase, you can choose to give your gift via a printable gift certificate, send the gift immediately via email, or schedule the gift to be delivered via email at the time of your choosing. For an in-person gift exchange, I like to print out the gift certificate and put it in a (reused) gift bag so they have something to open.
Here’s the link to give a gift through Libro.fm.
Audiobook recommendations
If you are looking for a specific audiobook to gift a friend, I’d start with their Goodreads or Storygraph and gift something on their “to read” list. Or, give something you’ve read and enjoyed.
However, for inspiration, here are a few that I would recommend:
- Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier – a classic gothic suspense novel – you don’t realize how addicting it’s going to be! Of course, the risk with gifting a classic is that your recipient has already read it.
- Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera – a contemporary thriller (2024) that is perfect for audio as it features a podcast: What if you thought you murdered your best friend? And if everyone else thought so too? And what if the truth doesn’t matter?
- Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green – first, I love that John Green narrates his own audiobooks. You are possibly more familiar with him from his YA novels like The Fault in Our Stars, but this is nonfiction. He weaves together a story of people he’s met through his work fighting tuberculosis, the world’s deadliest infectious disease, with the history and science of how tuberculosis has shaped today’s world and how it’s still affecting people around the world.
- The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard – this one is both high concept and literary. Imagine a town in a valley. To the east in the next valley is the same town but twenty years ahead in time. To the west, a town twenty years in the past. This book is not light – it’s about grief, regret, and what power we have to change things, or not.
