Tips to Play Audible Audiobooks on Alexa

Will she do what you ask?

Reading has come a long way since the advent of the Amazon Kindle ten-plus years ago. Now the Kindle reading app allows us to read on any of our devices, supported by the arguably incomparable Kindle reading ecosystem, which includes saving our clippings in the cloud, synching our reading position across our various devices, looking up words, people, and ideas with the press of a finger, and so on and so on. It is a remarkable edifice, this sprawling Kindle empire.

Now, with Alexa joining the party, and Audible audiobooks a part of the Amazon, we can even have our audiobooks read to us. If you have an Audible book in your library, just say: “Alexa, open Audible and play “House of Mirth.” Alexa will pick up right where you left off last time, either on Echo Dot or any other device. Sweet!

What else can Alexa do with an audiobook? When I asked Alexa to “slow down” the reading, I was informed that the book would be read at 75{0222bff7f83ab86956ffc9037a0e6a506bb262c41623d56f24252cec0bf3e1d1} of normal speed. Ditto with getting back to 100{0222bff7f83ab86956ffc9037a0e6a506bb262c41623d56f24252cec0bf3e1d1} speed and then to 125{0222bff7f83ab86956ffc9037a0e6a506bb262c41623d56f24252cec0bf3e1d1} speed: “Alexa, speed up.” Naming a percentage of normal speed did not work. Speed up, speed down–Alexa gets that. Same with volume, although Alexa will jump to a specific volume on a scale of 1 (quiet) to 10 (loud).

As with everything on Alexa these days, just ask. For example, I asked Alexa to play the book from the beginning. She told me politely that Audible doesn’t support that function through Alexa right now. So there you have it. Please share your best ideas with us in the comments!