Spotify Is Now Selling Audiobooks

Spotify launched a new catalog of audiobooks this week, offering US listeners more than 300,000 titles available for purchase. Browse books(opens in new window) Featured from Stephen King, Malcolm Gladwell, Tyler Jenkins Reed, Michelle Obama, JRR Tolkien, and more, and more from your library, search, and homepage recommend.

Titles are locked before buying, although people can take advantage of short audio samples before clicking to buy. You can’t buy audiobooks through Spotify’s app, possibly because the company can avoid paying Apple and Google as part of in-app purchases. However, once you’ve purchased an audiobook on the web, it’s synced to your account and you can listen to it from the Spotify app.

On the web and app, click on an audiobook cover to view details such as publication date, length, narrator, and description; scroll down to access individual chapters. Supported features include offline listening, automatic bookmarking and speed control. People are also invited to add a star rating from one to five that will contribute to the overall grade for the book.

This audiobook debut comes a year after Spotify get(opens in new window) Digital audiobook publisher Findaway, and a few months later Spotify CEO Daniel Ek teased a “full-fledged platform where artists and creators can create, engage and monetize.”

“We’ve always believed that the potential of audio is limitless, and we’ve always said that our goal is to be the complete package for everyone’s listening needs,” said Nir ​​​Zicherman, Spotify’s vice president and global head of audiobooks. Say(opens in new window) this week.

“We hope that users who start finding audiobooks in their app today will find the user experience obvious — audiobooks fit perfectly with how they already use Spotify,” said Zicherman, who revealed more markets, new functionality and more benefits for listeners, authors and publishers.

Not sure what to listen to? Spotify curates lists of “Great First Audiobooks,” “Buzzworthy Books,” “Quick Listen,” and “Celebrity Titles,” as well as collections of Latino, Black, AAPI, and LGBTQIA+ voices. Alternatively, users can search for a specific title or author, or hope to get the best results from the algorithm’s suggestions.

“This is just the beginning of Spotify’s audiobook journey,” the company said. “We’ve been working hard to create a seamless audiobook experience, and we’ll continue to build and innovate on this in the future.”

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