Audible’s new ‘Read & Listen’ feature syncs your Kindle e-books with audiobooks

Source: TechCrunch

Overview

Only days after Spotify announced its foray into physical book sales, which included an audiobook feature that lets you sync your listening and your offline reading progress, Amazon‑owned Audible has launched a feature that brings e‑books together with audiobooks.

The company announced on Wednesday an “immersion reading” feature in the Audible app, which allows readers who have both the e‑book and audiobook versions of a title in their Audible and Kindle libraries to read the e‑book’s text while the audio plays. The feature also lets users switch between the different formats across devices. While in the “Read & Listen” mode, the text of the book is highlighted in real time in sync with the narration.

The Kindle app already offered a tool that would allow readers to move between the Audible version and the e‑book when both versions had been purchased (see details). This capability is now coming to Audible’s app for the first time. Customers will need to own both versions of the book for this to work, but discounted audiobooks will be made available to customers who own the matching e‑book, the company says.

Availability

• Supported languages: English, German, Spanish, Italian, French.
• Initial rollout: United States.
• Upcoming markets: United Kingdom, Australia, Germany (in the next few months).

To discover eligible titles, Audible will automatically identify which Kindle e‑books have audiobook matches within its app.

Benefits

• Enhanced learning: Useful for students and language learners who want to reinforce comprehension by reading and listening simultaneously.
• Speed reading: Helps readers get through more books quickly by allowing seamless switching between formats.
• Narration quality: Provides professional narration (including favorite voice actors) instead of Alexa’s more monotone AI narration.
• Pronunciation aid: Narrators introduce characters by name, helping readers learn correct pronunciation—especially valuable for fantasy novels with complex names.

The company claims that the combination of reading and listening can improve focus and comprehension, according to industry research and its own internal data. Customers who read and listen are the most engaged, consuming nearly twice as much content per month as audiobook‑only customers, Audible noted.

Quote

“Audiobooks count as reading,” said Andy Tsao, chief product officer at Audible, in a statement about the launch. “But now at Audible, you can read with your eyes too. Read & Listen gives book lovers the best of both worlds. Whether you’re learning a new language, studying for school, or lost in a story’s world, you no longer have to choose one format over the other.”

Publisher Impact

Amazon notes that the new feature will not impact publishers’ royalty payments.