Audiobook company Audible is today launching a new ‘all you can eat’ subscription to romance novels. Along with this new offering is a ‘jump to the good parts’ feature that was built with machine learning, which may come to other genres in the future.
A standard Audible subscription offers inclusive access to only one book per month, while Audible Romance allows you to listen to as many books as you like in the romantic novel category with the Audible iOS app.
You do require a special subscription for this, which is available in one of two versions …
If you already have an Audible or Kindle Unlimited subscription, then Audible Romance is available as a $6.95/month add-on. If romance is all you want, then you can instead opt for a $14.95/month standalone subscription.
The freedom to binge on thousands of romance audiobooks. New ways to discover your next great listen from our expertly curated collection. The steamiest voices, including celebrity narrators, bringing stories to life. Anytime, anywhere listening with our free Audible app. Ad-free offline listening.
Both add-on and standalone packages offer the first month free. Not all romance novels are included, so you’ll probably want to use the free trial to check out whether your favorite authors have signed-on to the deal.
For those who like to jump to the, uh, good bits, Audible says that it’s also use machine-learning to identify them, offering the ability to skip straight to these. You can also pick your novels by their Steaminess score.
The company does, though, stress that it isn’t just talking about the sex scenes. Oh no. It explained to The Verge how it works.
The feature is much more nuanced, and developing it involved studying user habits and tastes. Audible Chief Financial Officer Cynthia Chu, who heads the company’s data science team, says Take Me To The Good Part highlights scenes in 10 categories: First Meeting, Flirty Banter, Sexual Tension, First Kiss, I Want You, Trouble in Paradise, It Might Be Love, Declaration of Love, and Proposal, as well as the sex scene category, Hot Hot Hot. She describes these categories as breaking down “moments in a typical women’s title where we know fans go back to relive them time and time again.”
This feature can also be used to check out a book before deciding whether or not to read it. Audible says that it may at some point apply the same approach to other genres.
Letting listeners preview fight scenes in thrillers, or gory scenes in horror novels.
Gratuitous plug: you can find my techno thriller 11/9 on Audible – though not in the romance category …
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