A celebration of Libro.fm: the indie, DRM-free Audible alternative that helps your local bookseller (with giveaway!)

Libro.fm (previously) is an independent audiobook store that sells all the same audiobooks you can get on other platforms like Audible, Google Play, Apple, Downpour, etc, but unlike the industry leaders at Audible and Apple, they are DRM-free, and unlike all of their competition, they work with independent booksellers.

When you sign up for a Libro.fm account, you can choose any one of 561 indie booksellers as your home bookstore -- the place where you go to get ideas about which books you want to listen to next (I chose Diesel, where I first encountered Libro.fm). Then, every time you buy an audiobook from Libro.fm, they give a commission to your home store, to reward them for being a showroom for the audiobooks you're listening to.

Amazon doesn't just dominate the bookselling market, they also dominate audiobooks, through their DRM-mandatory Audible division, which controls some 90% of the market and engages in all kinds of sleazy tactics that squeeze performers, publishers and authors, while locking every customer into their proprietary ecosystem forever. Authors can't opt out of Amazon/Audible DRM, which is why none of my books are available there. This decision has cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years, but it's not a priciple I'm prepared to give in on (I will sacrifice short-term gain, even enough to pay off my house, to avoid the long-term pain of locking my audience into Amazon's ecosystem forever).

Indie booksellers have experienced a resurgence in the past decade, as have audiobooks. Read the rest