What are the current trends in reading non-fiction books? One trend is the growing preference for consuming non-fiction content in summary formats.
Non-fiction book summaries allow you to grasp the main ideas of a wide range of non-fiction books in just a few minutes. This is useful for anyone who wants to expand their knowledge, but is short on time, or lacks the patience to read the entire book. Among the available services, Blinkist is known for its established reputation and extensive library, making it a leader in the industry. On the other hand, ReadinGraphics takes a unique approach by combining insightful summaries with engaging visuals, positioning itself as a creative force in the market.
In the following section, we will compare these two platforms. You will discover why each service makes consuming book summaries convenient and valuable. Additionally, you can decide which service best aligns with your reading preferences and learning objectives. To ensure objectivity, we’ve incorporated feedback from users of both platforms.
ReadinGraphics vs. Blinkist: Comparison Infographic
Both Blinkist and ReadinGraphics are well-known for creating summaries that help people quickly understand the main points of nonfiction books. They use different formats to present the key insights from books, and it generally takes around 20 minutes to review the material on both platforms.
Below is a quick comparison of the top differentiating factors for the 2 platforms. Read on for even more details as we compare their strengths, highlighting how each platform caters to different user preferences.
Content Library: Blinkist excels with quantity while ReadinGraphics prioritizes genre specialisation
Blinkist, established in 2012, has a library of over 6,500 book summaries covering a wide range of genres, including fiction and non-fiction. Users can explore various topics such as personal development, popular science, and politics. ReadinGraphics, founded in 2015, focuses on business and personal development. It has fewer summaries, partially because it only features books shortlisted based on a set of stringent criteria. Despite the smaller library, ReadinGraphics’ summaries are rich in detail and analysis due to their expertise in these specific genres.
Unique Features: ReadinGraphics pioneered infographics, Blinkist uses music
ReadinGraphics provides book summaries in three formats: text, audio, and infographic. They are the first to offer infographic summaries, which are designed for visual learners. Research shows that about 65% of people are visual learners, and humans process visuals 60,000 times faster than text. Graphics can bring information to life, making it easier to grasp and remember complex ideas from your favorite books. And, unlike videos, infographics allow readers to skim and take in a visual snapshot of an entire book.
Blinkist offers both text and audio summaries. Their unique features shine in their audio summaries. They pay attention to their narrators to ensure that the summaries are engaging and come to life. They also use music in their audio summaries to help users concentrate.
Quality: ReadinGraphics prioritizes depth while Blinkist summaries are concise
Blinkist has improved its quality over the years. Its summaries are concise and well-written. Furthermore, their summaries now match the tone of the book. Once in a while, critics have felt that Blinkist summaries seem rushed, but overall, their quality appears good.
ReadinGraphics also creates easy-to-digest and well-written summaries. They use humans to read and summarize books, ensuring accurate insights and an in-depth coverage of the actionable ideas. Many book summary services use AI, which can compromise the quality and accuracy of the summary since the information is generated from sources on the Internet rather than the original content. Hence the importance of human-developed book summaries.
User Navigation: ReadinGraphics and Blinkist are both easy to use
Both Blinkist and ReadinGraphics have user-friendly interfaces that work well on both desktop and mobile devices.
Blinkist’s user-friendliness lies in its simplicity. It has a home bar and three easy-to-navigate tabs, and its mobile app makes it relatively seamless to access and read the summaries. Â ReadinGraphics offers an intuitive platform for seamless content access on any device. Their focus on visual learning extends to their navigation and data presentation, making it easier for users to skim through content and retain key information. ReadinGraphics only uses a web-app at the moment, though insiders say a mobile app is being developed.
Accessibility Features: ReadinGraphics summaries are downloadable; Blinkist boasts adjustable text
Both Blinkist and ReadinGraphics aim to make their content accessible to a wide range of users. Blinkist achieves this by offering adjustable text sizes and audio speeds in its app. This makes it easier for users with different visual and auditory needs to read or listen to the content comfortably. On the other hand, ReadinGraphics uses infographics, which can be more helpful for visual learners. ReadinGraphics also allows users to access their materials online, print them, or download them for use on any computer or mobile device. Blinkist summaries are not downloadable, and access is lost when the subscription is canceled.
Free Plan: Blinkist offers a 7-day free trial; ReadinGraphics offers two free book summaries
Blinkist offers a 7-day free trial, which gives you access to all their premium services. This helps you decide whether their book summaries are a good fit for you. They also offer access to one free book summary per day, but the choice of book is a random pick by the service. ReadinGraphics offers 2 pre-selected summary samples including pdf/mp3 downloads (worth $27.94), free email tips, and a one-time-use coupon for all regular-priced items in their store. They also share condensed book summaries for free on their blog, complete with extracts of infographics that make the content clear, engaging, and easily digestible. So, you can still get key ideas from your favorite books for free, and test out the visual learnign experience there.
Pricing: Blinkist versus ReadinGraphics
Blinkist has two subscription options: an annual plan for $99.99 per year and a monthly plan for $15.99. The annual plan offers significant savings compared to the monthly one. ReadinGraphics, on the other hand, is a bit more expensive, with a monthly subscription cost of $19.97. Similar to Blinkist, significant savings can be achieved by choosing the yearly plan, which costs $169.70 per year.
Although ReadinGraphics is more expensive, it allows users to download printable pdf files, and to save the mp3 files to any device. Additionally, they offer a flexible plan where you can buy individual book summaries without a subscription, each costing between $9.97 and $13.97. If you’re a serious learner, ReadinGraphics’ 10-year plan allows you to pay a one-time fee of $697 (with a promo code) for 10 years’ access to book summaries, making this cheaper than Blinkist and other similar services.
Learning Extras: Blinkist Guides versus ReadinGraphics free book summary blog posts
Both platforms offer various tools and extra features to improve the learning experience and help users remember what they’ve learned. Blinkist has features like highlights and personal note-taking for marking and revisiting important insights, along with Guides containing additional exercises, infographics, and quizzes. In contrast, ReadinGraphics complements its unique summaries with free access to condensed book summary blog posts. These short summaries offer a quick and accessible way for users to gain insights into key ideas from an entire book, especially when they are short on time or need to reinforce their learning.
Onboarding and Customer Support: Both have responsive customer support
Both Blinkist and ReadinGraphics aim to make it easy for new users to get started with their services. Blinkist provides clear instructions, an easy-to-use interface, and responsive customer support.
ReadinGraphics focuses on helping users understand their mix of text and infographic content, and offers various support options, including email, contact forms, an FAQ section. The non-fiction book summary service even allows readers to suggest and vote for books for summarization.
What are the advantages of using non-fiction book summaries?
Non-fiction book summaries are valuable complements to long-form books for gaining knowledge and personal growth. They provide a simple way to access insights from long texts. Here is more on how these benefits unfold, specifically with Blinkist and ReadinGraphics in focus:
Save Time, Learn More
- Book summaries help to cut through the clutter and get to important ideas quickly. This is especially so for books that are repetitive or “heavily padded.”
- Summaries from both Blinkist and ReadinGraphics can be completed in just 15 minutes, helping you to learn quickly and decide if you want to learn more about that book or topic.
- ReadinGraphics’ infographics also help visual learners to grasp concepts quickly yet deeply, and to connect ideas across books.
- If you prefer listening, both service providers provided audio summaries that can be completed in about 20 minutes.
Better Learning and Retention
- By picking out the key points and insights, and presenting them clearly and succinctly, book summaries help you understand the important parts of a book without getting lost.
- They’re especially useful for books that are dense, convoluted, and inaccessible.
- Blinkist has lots of summaries on many topics, allowing you to cover a wide range of titles quickly. They also tend to use short stories to faciliate learning.
- ReadinGraphics facilitates learning in a different way, incorporating the world’s first infographic summary format alongside text and audio formats. This is especially useful for visual learners or those who prefer multiple modes of learning.
- Both summary services help you to understand complex ideas better, intensifying the learning experience.
Explore and Refresh Ideas
- Besides saving time, book summaries make it easier to explore new topics or revisit learned concepts.
- Blinkist provides a vast library, encouraging exploration across numerous subjects.
- ReadinGraphics, with its unique blend of audio, text and infographic summaries, makes it easier to revisit and refresh key concepts at a glance.
Improve Critical Thinking and Mental Models
- Studies have found the best learning comes from an integration of ideas from diverse sources and perspectives.
- With over 6500 summaries, Blinkist helps you to learn from many different viewpoints.
- ReadinGraphics uses a combination of pictures, text, and audio to stimulate the brain and literally help you to “see” and connect ideas from books differently.
Other Non-Fiction Book Summary Sites
For those seeking quick and insightful non-fiction book summaries, here are some best book summary services to explore:
- Sumizeit: offers concise summaries in text, audio, and video formats covering a range of topics. It’s designed for easy understanding and personal growth​​.
- getAbstract: provides professional summaries for a broad audience, including teams, with thousands of books across various fields. It’s user-friendly and regularly updated​​.
- Instaread: delivers 15-minute summaries in audio and text, covering genres like self-help and business. It offers a free trial and then a subscription model​​.
- Readitfor.me: is aimed at entrepreneurs and executives, providing quick summaries in various formats. Subscriptions include monthly, annual, and lifetime plans
Conclusion and Recommendation
Non-fiction book summaries are like shortcuts that help you learn quickly. They take big books full of ideas and shrink them so you can understand the main points quickly. This is handy for busy people who still want to learn new things. Websites like ReadinGraphics and Blinkist make finding these short versions of big books easy. While both are on a similar mission to help us save time and make learning easier, they take different approaches that may suit one person more than the other.
Blinkist takes us through a synopsis of a wide range of books in a concise manner with a flair for words. They explore various topics, so there’s something for everyone. Additionally, you can listen to their summaries, providing a perfect alternative for when you want to give your eyes a break.
ReadinGraphics stands out for their innovative approach. Their blend of text-based summaries, audio summaries, and visual infographics caters to various types of learners, including visual learners. They carefully curate the best business and personal development books, to be summarized and visualized in-depth, making them ideal for those who wish to specifically learn and apply ideas from these fields.
Both book summary services offer trials, so you can see which better suits your needs. If interested, take advantage of ReadinGraphics’ offer to explore two free summaries and experience firsthand how their unique infographic, audio, and text-based approach can enhance your knowledge and inspire growth.
FAQ Section
How do you write a summary of a book?
When summarizing a book, identify the main ideas and key points. Condense them into a brief overview, focusing on the central themes and significant events. Avoid unnecessary details, and use clear and concise language to convey the essence of the book.
How to summarize a nonfiction book?
When summarizing a nonfiction book, carefully read the text and note down the main ideas, arguments, and supporting evidence. Condense these into a brief overview, emphasizing the main themes and important information. Focus on being clear, accurate, and relevant to effectively capture the essence of the book.
What is the best website for book summaries?
ReadinGraphics creates book summaries of top business and personal development books. They aim to make insights easy to understand and use. By incorporating visual elements to presenting complex information, andcreating summaries in different formats, like infographics, and audio they help all kinds of learners.
What are the best book summary websites?
Some of the best book summary websites include ReadinGraphics, providing text, audio, and visual summaries for business and personal development; Blinkist, offering concise summaries across genres; getAbstract, focusing on actionable insights for professionals and SumizeIt, covering popular nonfiction topics.
How do you write a good synopsis?
Creating a good synopsis involves summarizing the most important parts of the story, like the main events and the characters’ development. It’s important to focus on the main conflict, what drives the characters, and how things are resolved. Keep it interesting and to the point.
Subscribe to ReadinGraphics’ premium plan for full access to text, infographic, and audio summaries for hundreds of business and personal development books!
