A reported Spotify audiobooks development has now been confirmed by the company. Paid subscribers will be able to listen to 15 hours of audiobooks at no extra cost – though Americans are not first in line.
Whether or not 15 hours will let you listen to an entire book will depend on the book …
Spotify audiobooks
Spotify first moved into the audiobook field in 2020, with just a few public domain titles. More titles were added in 2021, but the company’s interest only took a serious turn when it acquired audiobook platform Findaway last year.
That gave it 300K titles, but no clear unique selling point. Pricing was on par with market leader Audible, and there were no discounts for paying subscribers.
15 hours of free listening for Spotify Premium users
The Verge reports that Spotify Premium subscribers will get up to 15 hours of audiobook listening at no extra cost.
At a company event this afternoon, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek announced that Spotify subscribers in the UK, Australia, and, in the winter, the US will be able to stream 15 hours of premium audiobooks each month.
Many audiobooks fall within that 15-hour limit, meaning that subscribers effectively get to stream one free audiobook per month. However, as the report notes, some books are longer.
Longer novels are not going to fit into 15 hours (for example, The Fellowship of the Ring is 19 hours), let alone hulking biographies and histories (the Napoleon Bonaparte biography in my Audible library is 32 hours — yes, Napoleon is my Roman Empire).
You would have the option of listening to a longer audiobook over a couple of months, but the wait could be pretty frustrating.
At least one other catch
There’s at least one other catch. While Spotify says that “premium” audiobooks are included, this will be limited to around 70% of bestsellers, so will likely exclude the most popular titles.
That may not be the only issue, however. When the plan was first reported last month, the WSJ said that the included listening (then said to be 20 hours per month) was only expected to run for a limited time.
Details are still evolving, but the company expects to offer the program for a limited time and aims to gauge customer interest in audiobooks.
Sampling is one way to use the deal
If you have an Audible subscription, one possible way to use the free hours on Spotify would be to sample a number of audiobooks, rather than aiming to listen to one all the way through. In that way you can identify the books you later want to buy using your Audible credits.
Used in that way, 15 hours per month is pretty generous – for however long it may last.
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