Affiliate disclosure

The short version

Shelf & Sound takes part in the Amazon Associates program. When you click one of our links to Audible or Kindle Unlimited and go on to start a qualifying free trial, Amazon pays us a flat fee for that signup.

Note the shape of that, because it is different from most affiliate sites: we are not paid a percentage of anything you buy afterward. We are paid a fixed amount for the signup itself. There is no version of this where we make more money by steering you toward a more expensive book, because we do not earn anything on books at all.

It costs you nothing. The price you pay is the same whether you arrive through our link or type the address yourself.

Which links are affiliate links

Every link that goes to an Audible or Amazon signup page. On this site they are:

• marked with #ad underneath,
• preceded by a visible disclosure directly above the link, not just in the footer,
• tagged rel="sponsored nofollow" so search engines can identify them, and
• routed through /go/ on this domain before they reach Amazon, so we can count clicks.

Every other outbound link on this site — to Amazon help pages we cite as sources, to library services, to anything else — earns us nothing.

Services we are NOT affiliated with

We have joined no affiliate program for any of the following. They appear here as plain, untagged links, and we recommend them where they are genuinely the better answer:

• Libby — The free app most US public libraries use to lend ebooks and audiobooks. Costs nothing beyond a library card.
• Spotify — Bundles a monthly allowance of audiobook listening into some music plans.
• Libro.fm — An audiobook seller that splits revenue with an independent bookshop you choose.
• Everand — Scribd's subscription, covering ebooks and audiobooks under one fee.
• Kobo Plus — Rakuten Kobo's ebook and audiobook subscription, sold in read, listen or combined tiers.

Libby matters most in that list. A public library card costs nothing and pays us nothing, and it is the recommendation on several pages here, including Audible versus Libby and where free audiobooks come from. Those pages exist because they are the right answer for a lot of readers, and they lose us money by design.

Amazon Associates statement

Shelf & Sound is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon properties. Amazon and all related marks are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.

Program terms are Amazon's, not ours

We do not control what offer you are shown. Trial lengths, prices, promotions and eligibility are set by Amazon and Audible and can change without notice, which is exactly why the CTAs on this site send you to look at the current offer rather than stating one. What we verified, and when, is printed on every page that states a term — the method is on how we research.

Bounty programs of this kind are generally limited to new customers of the program. If you have subscribed before, you may not be eligible for a trial, and we would rather tell you that up front than have you find out at checkout.

Questions

If anything about how this site is funded is unclear, ask: info@shelfandsound.com. Our editorial policy covers how we handle independence and corrections.