Unlocking the World of Stories with Google - Your Ultimate Guide to Acquiring and Tapping Into Audiobooks

How to Purchase and Listen to Google Audiobooks

Posted by Iris Yan on 12/11/2018 3:27:39 PM.

Following the footstep of Amazon and Kobo, another eBook vendor giant—Google, is selling the audiobooks on the Google Play Store now. Google launches this service on 23rd 2018 and now the Google audiobooks are available in 45 countries and 9 languages. In this article, I will share with you how to purchase, listen to and download Google audiobooks.

Quick Access

How to Purchase Google Audiobooks

The main difference between Google Play and Audible audiobooks is Google audiobooks do not have the subscription requirement. As the advertisement on the website, you can “Listen to audiobooks without a subscription“. So you do not have to pay 14.95USD per month to get one credit to purchase one audible book. The Google Play store offers many audiobooks at very low price, like under 9.9$ as part of introductory sale. What’s more, if this is your first time to purchase the audiobook at Google Play store, you can enjoy 50% discount off at your first audiobook. This offer will end on February 26, 2018.

Like other services Google Play store provided, you can only buy the audiobooks via computers or Android devices, not including iPhone or iPad. Here I will show you how to purchase Google Play Audiobook on computer.

Step 1: Open Google Play store .

Step 2: Click on Books tab the top left corner, then “Audiobooks”. Now you can see a banner “50% off your first audiobook”. Tap the banner to get the promotion code to your cart.

Step 3: Input the book title you want to purchase at the search bar at the top or just go the categories to find the exact book. Click on the book cover, you will go to another page with the detailed information about this book. Just like Audible, Google Play audiobook also offers Sample for listening before making the purchase. Just click on “Play Sample“ to listening the sample.

Step 4: Click on “XX$ Audiobook” button, you will go the check out page. If you have added the 50% discount off promo at the second step, the discount will be applied automatically. You just need to select the payment method and continue the purchase. When all has been done, you will find the purchased audiobooks at Audiobooks under My Books tab.

The purchased audiobooks can be shared with your family remembers who have been added to your Family Library.

How to listen to Google Audiobooks

Like many other Google services, audiobooks can be played on many devices: computers(the web), Android, iOS and Google Home speaker.

Listen to Google Audiobooks on Computer/Windows 10 Tablet

If you are using the computer or Windows 10 tablets to listen to Google Play audiobooks, the only way you can listen to the Google Play audiobooks is streaming in a web which will require the internet connection.

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Listen to Google Audiobooks on Android/iOS

If you are using the Android or iOS phone to listen to the audiobooks, you just need to install the Google Play Books App. When the audiobook has been purchased, if you click the book title, the book will downloaded automatically, allowing you to listen to the audiobook offline.

To avoid data charges, please ensure you download audiobook using Wi-Fi only. You can following the below steps to turn this feature on or off.
For the Android device, open Google Play Books app, tap menu at the top left corner, then tap settings and select Download over Wi-Fi only.
For the iOS device, open Settings app, then scroll down to find the Google Play Books, then turn off Cellular data option.

Listen to Google Audiobooks with the Help of Google Assistant

One special feature I want to mention here is the integration with Google Assistant on your Android Phone and Google Home which enables you can ask the Google Assistant read the Google audiobook with the command “OK, Google, read [book title]”. You can also use other commands to operate the audiobook playback, such as “OK, Google, resume/continue/pause/Stop.” You can even learn more about the author and even set a sleep timer for the audiobook via voice command. There are much more commands so I will not list all of them here.

Another nifty feature about Google audiobook is you can listen to audiobooks on all your devices and seamlessly switch between them. That means you can listen to the audiobook from where you left off last time at another device.

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Newly Added: How to Download Google Audiobooks

When the Google Play started to sell the audiobooks, it did not offer the “Download” option at the very beginning. Many users choose to dismiss Google audiobooks for the seek of lacking “Download” option. We should praise Google for taking customer thinking and feeling in the top priority. A few months later, you will find the “Export” option on your purchased Google audiobooks. You are allowed to download your purchased Google audiobooks, but only on computer, not on Androd or Ios devices. Below is the detailed steps on downloading Google audiobooks.

Step 1

Go to your Googleplay Book library and find your purchased audiobooks.

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Step 2

Click on the three dots under the audiobook cover, and then click on “Export” from the drop downlist.

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Step 3

A window will pop up to show you the file name and type. As you can see that the default downloaded Google play audiobooks are in m4a format. Select where you want to store this file on your computer and click on “Save” button. The downloading process will start.

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Then what you have to do is waiting. When the downloading has been finished, you will find the file on your computer with .m4a extension.

Good news to share is that the downloaded M4A audibooks are DRM free. You can play it at any m4a supported devices or apps. As you can see from above picture, my downloaded m4a file is played on iTunes. No need to remove DRM from Google audiobooks as Audible. As we all know that Audible audiobooks are protected by DRM, if you want to listen to audible audiobooks you need to remove DRM from Audible and convert audible to mp3 . If you come across to have Audible audiobooks, Epubor Audible converter can be a very useful tool for you. You are welcome to download it to have a free trial.

Download Epubor Audible Converter for free:

Iris Yan has been a passionate member of Epubor since 2017. Her mission is to enhance your ebook reading experience by sharing insightful tips and tricks. Join her on a journey towards reading excellence today!

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7 Comments

Alicia

Re:All Things about Google Play Audiobooks

07/18/2019 00:57:18

Thank you very much.

Epubor

Re:Alicia

07/18/2019 08:36:20

You are welcome. Have a nice day!

Justin

Re:All Things about Google Play Audiobooks

03/3/2021 19:09:19

Well Google now has with DRM or at least “exporting option not available” ones.. so I was rather hoping to find out how to get this into mp3 or some other usable format.
Example:
I gave you the URL and you refused to post my comment because you called it SPAM, @!#$@#$*@(#*$@(

Epubor

Re:Justin

03/4/2021 09:20:25

Thank you for your comments.
We are sincerely sorry to inform you that Epubor audible converter doesn’t support google audiobook converting.

Christina

Re:All Things about Google Play Audiobooks

10/11/2021 12:28:12

“Epubor audible converter doesn’t support google audiobook converting”

Can this please be a thing? Downloading and converting? There are radio dramas I have from there that I would like to make an mp3 and there doesn’t seem to have an export option.

Epubor

Re:Christina

10/14/2021 09:05:41

Thank you for your comments. Epubor audible converter doesn’t support google play audiobooks.

Jenia

Re:All Things about Google Play Audiobooks

05/10/2023 04:21:31

I hate this

Some Knowledge

Unlocking the World of Stories with Google - Your Ultimate Guide to Acquiring and Tapping Into Audiobooks