
Digital-Book Worm	View in browser

Sorry to interrupt your weekly Tech-Letter programming, but I have something exciting to announce!

Over the past week I worked on a new project called Choose My Smoothie. Long story short, this is a website where you can browse through a growing list of smoothie recipes, sourced from popular websites, and use filters to narrow down your recipe options; i.e. if you only have strawberries and bananas at home, I'll only show you recipes that have both these ingredients (you can read more about this on the about page).

That being said, I just launched this project on Product Hunt and would love for you to check it out!

And now... back to what you came for.

Which is the last book you read?

I don't want to play the blame game but growing up, YouTube became the main reason I put the books down and picked the smartphones up.

For the longest time I wanted to get back into the habit of reading more, but contrary to most of the people I've met, I take no actual comfort in "turning the pages of a book" or having to carry one or more books around with me... all the time. This is when I discovered audio and e-books, and my entire world changed.

P.S. Speaking of reading... If you're a new reader, welcome! Feel free to subscribe to one of your new favourite newsletters (this is me being humble, btw).

Scribd 📖

Let me start by telling you what Scribd is not: Audible.

In my journey of finding the best audio/e-book provider, I most definitely considered Audible-- for I am only human. But let me tell you why Audible did not fit my needs.

Audible, an Amazon product, starts at roughly $14.95 a month. What do you get for this price? 2 free books a month, "deals", and monthly credits (1/month with the cheapest plan) that you can use to buy books.

Oh but there's more!! If you're already an Amazon Prime member (more $), you get a 1 month free trial & 2 free audiobooks!! How in the world is this not the best option out there is beyond me (hoping you sense the sarcasm in my words).

And now, let me tell you what Scribd is: not Audible.

Often referred to as the "Netflix for Books", Scribd is an application (for your phones, or a website for your computers) that gives you access to a massive library of literary content. This doesn't include Audible's generous offer of "2 free books a month", but, quite literally, hundreds of books at your disposal.

From audiobooks, to e-books, to magazines, to documents; from bestsellers, to award winners, to indie-titles, it's almost a challenge to not actively read something on Scribd.

Contrary to most digital-book-services, this is the first major plus point I found with Scribd: a fixed price of $9.99 a month (plus taxes) for the entire library. There are no gimmicks (or none that I have found).

Using the platform is very easy too-- you have various categories ranging all the way from your history and sci-fi novels, to romance and business ones; and in more cases than not, you're given the option to access the book in more than one form (either e-book, or audiobook version).

In the audiobook version, you're able to set playback speed (1x, 1.25x, and so on), a sleep-timer for the times you want to be read-to-bed, and your other common playback tools. For e-books, you're given the ability to change font sizes, highlight chunks of text, add notes, or even share quotes on social media.

There's more.

Scribd gives you access to "snapshots", which are 5-10 minute summaries on some of the most popular books (if you don't want to go through the entire book for some reason).

Scribd lets you go through up-to-date versions of some of the most popular magazines (TIME, People, Bloomberg, Men's Health, and so many more).

Scribd allows you to browse through and download thousands of documents uploaded by people all around the world (I look for paid-workout plans here that companies like BodyBuilding charge for).

At this point, I'm tired of writing down the benefits for this app, but I'm still not done.

Scribd Perks is the last one I'll cover: every so often, Scribd will partner up with x companies to offer even more perks to its members. At the time of me writing this tech-letter, these are some of the current perks:

The only con of this app is that every now and again, there will be one book I won't find. But taking into consideration the amount of benefits I do get, I don't worry about this too much.

This ended up being a long tech-letter, but I'm not sorry for that because this app has got me back into the habit of reading, and that's always something to look forward to.

And right when you thought I was done with Scribd benefits... I have one more.

To sign up for this digital library, you can simply visit their website and do so yourself. But, if you use my referral link (that I've made available on all these pictures or the button below), you get 60 days for $0 (free), and you can cancel anytime.

So at the end of the day, Scribd is probably not as good as Audible's 2-free-books-a-month generosity, but it's a start!