Scribd: 170M+ documents

I don’t love the decision to separate the documents from official books, but I’m sure there’s a reason. However, with the stuff that now makes up all of the Scribd app, there are two problems that make it way more difficult to use than it should be. First, you still see the things you’ve saved in Everand. There’s no reason for this. If I want to see those, I will open Everand. Second, Scribd has always been bad about saving your place in documents. When you close a doc, you absolutely must make a bookmark. This seems like something they should have figured out by now. Otherwise, quite good.

I’m trying to keep an open mind with this Everand x Scribd merger. Frankly, as a user, it is extremely inconvenient to browse content on two different apps, when it used to be on one app. Navigating my “saved” items has been a nightmare. Here are some examples: I look for a “document” on scribd, but can’t find it. Hop over to Everand, and find it there (turns out it was an “E-Book). Then I look for “sheet music’ on Everand, and again, can’t find it until I switch over to Scribd, and see that the “sheet music” was actually technically a “document”. Are you following my logic? Fellow users, can we relate? Also underscored is the inevitable feeling that these two services, currently covered under one subscription to Scribd, will eventually be two separate subscriptions (hopefully us founding users will be grandfathered into 1 sub). I would love to know the real reason for this change. My guess is either copyright issues (e-books being pirated as “documents” on scribd), or financial issues (joining forces with other companies to compete with Audible / Kindle). Because let’s be clear, the fact that the segregation of content actually makes it EASIER for users (as they claimed), is fundamentally untrue. I actually have empathy for whatever reason forced Scribd’s hand on this new direction. I proudly endorse this product as a superior alternative to Kindle and Audible. That being said, the execution and lack of transparency is disappointing.

I loved the original Scribd, and yes it split into two separate companies, Scribd and Everand, very recently, which I’m sure was for a very good reason, at least enough for the company to make such a big decision. It seems that a lot of people are so far unhappy with the big change, but please read on. I hope my experience will inspire you to give the company a chance at least until it gets back on its feet. One MAJOR IMPROVEMENT I see on Everand (where the audiobooks and ebooks are now) is that I no longer seem to be dealing with errors when it comes to trying to listen to certain audiobooks that used to give me the persistent errors claiming that I’ve exceeded the number of devices I’ve been listening to the audiobook on. I would go through all the troubleshooting (i.e. check for the said devices on my account only to find nothing, delete and redownload the app, update the app, sign out and sign back into the app, contact support) all to no avail. It seemed that the problem WAS bigger as even the troubleshooting steps provided by Scribd’s GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE team didn’t work. For this, I’M THANKFUL ‘cause NOW, I can finally listen to my audiobooks without the dreading feeling of, “Is it gonna play this time? Or am I gonna have to troubleshoot again for the next 20+mins?” I’m guessing that this issue (as I wasn’t an isolated case here upon me looking into the issue) may be one of the key points in the decision-making process. As for now, since they’ve barely started with the 2 apps, I am genuinely excited and will look forward to more updates in the near future. Scribd has been my favorite audiobook/ebook service (in many ways I prefer it over Kindle/Audible) and I’ve been a customer for a couple of years so I’ve seen and experienced the changes and growth. I would like to see more of what they have in store for us.