Last week’s leak took the surprise out of audiobooks making their way to the Google Play Store, but at least now it’s official. Google has posted a blog detailing the new section of their digital storefront, and everyone can grab a 50% discount on their first audiobook purchase.
Unlike other services, Google is touting this as a subscription-free service. Buy the book, and it’s yours forever, no additional costs. On top of that, you can ask Google Assistant to read your audiobooks back to you, and that works on both your phone and Google Home speakers. Family sharing is also included as icing on top.
Google went all in on the features with this launch, so you can set timers for how long you want Google Assistant to read, ask questions like “who is the author?” during playback, and pick up on multiple devices, including mobile phones, Chromecast, Android Wear, Android Auto, and computers. We give Google a lot of flak for some half-baked ideas, but they did an excellent job here.
This section of the shop is rolling out to 45 countries in 9 different languages starting today, although the Google Assistant integration is limited to English. And yes, that 50% off coupon does stack with some of the audiobooks that are already discounted. You can get some really cheap stuff right now.