Everand review: What is Everand and is it worth it? (2024)

I’m sure you have heard of Scribd. But what is Everand?

Whether you have seen this new name come by or have wondered about the yellow app icon showing up on your phone, in this blog post, you can find all the answers to the question: “What is Everand?”

I listen to around 200 – 250 audiobooks a year and Scribd / Everand is one of my favorite audiobook apps. I’ve been using it for years, so I have also prepared an Everand review for you, including its features and how it compares to other ebook and audiobook services.

What is Everand?

Everand is the new “story branch” of Scribd. The original Scribd platform has been divided. Under the name Scribd, you can now only find the original document service where researchers and other users can upload and download PDFs.

Everand is the new name for the digital library service that offers ebooks, audiobooks, sheet music, podcasts, and magazines for a flat monthly fee.

But of course, we’ve wondered, why is Scribd now Everand? The company says it’s just cleaner to split these two services.

And personally, I think this is an excellent change because people kept trying to abuse the document upload function for pirated ebooks.

I also felt that the search results often didn’t present the way I would have expected, as they were cluttered with PDFs when I was looking for an audiobook.

Now, I’m not a fan of change so I would have preferred to keep the old name for the book subscription. But given that the document exchange for researchers was the original purpose of the platform, I absolutely understand this decision.

And we bookworms at least get to keep the app!

That’s why you might have stumbled over a seemingly new app on your phone. Your former app Scribd is now called Everand and shows the new name and new icon.

People who want to upload and download PDFs have to install a new app named Scribd.

Features

Despite the name change, we can still find a vast digital library that covers an extensive range of content, from bestselling novels and nonfiction to popular magazines, and from audiobooks to podcasts and sheet music.

While some books and audiobooks are premium content and you can’t download an unlimited number of those, you can get almost unlimited audiobook listening out of an Everand subscription as you are neither limited by the number of books like on Hoopla nor by number of hours as on BookBeat.

Once you start a book, you can be sure that you get to finish it. You can add as many books to your library as you want. And if you read and listen wide to a range of genres, indie-published and backlist books, you will likely not be impacted much by throttling.

The service also still offers all the perks we have come to appreciate, like a user-friendly app with all the important features (bookmarks, narration speed, sleep timer), as well as offline listening, streaming (which means I don’t have to wait for a download to finish before I can start my audiobook – I’m not the patient type), and decent personalized recommendations.

Comparison with other Audiobook Services

Of course, this is not the only digital library service out there. Let’s have a quick look how it compares to the most popular audiobook and ebook services.

Everand vs Audible

Audible is the biggest player in the audiobook market and offers subscribers a vast collection of audiobooks and original audio content and many membership perks.

While Everand also offers a substantial selection of audiobooks, Audible has a much bigger catalog, not only due to its exclusive productions but also because traditional book publishing companies don’t always offer their audiobooks in library services.

However, Everand’s subscription plan is a cost-effective choice that can offer you more listening to the books you want for a lower fee.

Everand vs. Kindle Unlimited

Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited allows subscribers to access a huge library of ebooks and audiobooks and borrow as many as they want for a flat monthly fee.

Everand is very similar to this, but the two main differences are that they limit your access to premium books (e.g., the latest bestsellers) and that they do indeed have the latest bestsellers in their catalog, while Kindle Unlimited consists mainly of self-published ebooks and audiobooks published by one of Amazon’s own imprints.

Everand vs BookBeat

For European audiobook fans, BookBeat is a strong alternative. As BookBeat is from the UK, you can find books in their catalog that, due to international publishing rights, aren’t available on Everand.

BookBeat also offers content in more languages.

However, if you are an experienced Scribd subscriber, you can likely get more listening out of that subscription than out of a BookBeat one, as BookBeat limits your listening by hours.

Everand vs Hoopla

Hoopla is a digital platform for public libraries that offers audiobook downloads, as well as ebooks and movies. Most libraries will allow you 5 to 10 borrows per month, and using Hoopla is offered for free by participating libraries.

Everand and Hoopla have a very similar catalog. So, I like to recommend to avid audiobook listeners to use both services. Borrow the newest releases and bestsellers from Hoopla, where you are only limited by the amount of books.

Then you can get a lot of additional listening out of your Everand subscription.

But as the catalogs are so similar, it is also an excellent alternative for anyone who cannot get access to Hoopla.

If you often browse audiobook stores on a PC, I recommend you install Library Extension, a free little browser plug-in that I found incredibly useful as it helps me plan which audiobooks to borrow where.

How to Use Everand Books

Here’s a quick step-by-step guide on how to get started:

Signing Up:

Go to the official website at Everand.com**. Click on the “Read free for 30 days” button to create your account. After a one month free trial, you can continue your subscription for $11.99 or €10.99 per month, or switch to an annual one that is comparatively cheaper.

Exploring the Library:

After signing in, you’ll land on the home page. Here, you’ll find featured books and audiobooks. You can also see personalized recommendations once you have a reading history.

Use the search bar at the top to find specific titles or authors. The search functionality is robust, so you can discover content easily.

You can also explore the various categories of ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, podcasts, and sheet music through the menu at the top, or browse through book genres and Editor’s picks.

Reading and Listening:

Once you have found a book you’re interested in, click on it to access the reading or listening page. You can choose to read or listen online directly in your web browser. Or you click “Save for later” to add it to your library, which you can find under the “Saved” tab in the app.

If you’d like to read or listen offline, click the download button (the downward arrow in the app) to save the book to your device.

Is Everand worth it?

My answer is a resounding yes! I get so, so much listening out of this subscription every month. I could absolutely not afford to buy all these books individually.

I’ve used Scribd for audiobooks for years before it was renamed. And while there used to be times when the service was bumpy and the app wasn’t smooth, it has improved by leaps and bounds, and I would absolutely not want to miss it now.

If you are new to audiobooks, I can recommend an Everand free trial** wholeheartedly because it allows you to explore a variety of audiobooks. If you have only used Audible so far, you will love how you can listen to so many audiobooks here without having to spend money or an Audible credit.

Eline

Eline Blackman (pronouns: she/they) fell in love with books as a child – with being read to and reading herself. 10 years ago, she bought her first Audible book. It was love at first listen! An average of 250 audiobooks per year has become the new normal and you will rarely see Eline without a wireless earbud. Romance and Fantasy are the go-to genres for this audiobook fan.