Spotify has launched its audiobook perk for Premium subscribers in the U.S., offering access to more than 200,000 audiobooks — available for no extra charge, but limited to only about two titles per month.
The rollout comes after the audio streamer launched the audiobooks catalog for paying members in Australia and the U.K. last month. Initially, the company is offering all Premium individual accounts, as well as plan managers for Family and Duo accounts, 15 hours of listening per month.
According to the company, 15 hours should get you around two average audiobooks per month; once you hit the limit, you can purchase a 10-hour “top-up” or buy audiobooks on an a-la-carte basis. At this stage, the strategy is to grant Spotify Premium customers a taste of audiobooks, in the hopes they’ll open their wallets in order to listen to more.
Starting Wednesday, U.S. Spotify Premium subscribers will start seeing audiobooks marked as “Included in Premium” that they can listen to.
The Spotify Premium audiobook catalog includes more than 70% of bestselling titles, the company claims. Those include Britney Spears’ “The Woman in Me,” Jada Pinkett Smith’s “Worthy,” Kerry Washington’s “Thicker Than Water: A Memoir,” Jesmyn Ward’s “Let Us Descend,” Staci Robinson’s “Tupac Shakur: The Authorized Biography” and Jeanette McCurdy’s “I’m Glad My Mom Died,” as well as classics like Paulo Coelho’s “The Alchemist” and Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights.”
Other titles included in the mix include: Willie Nelson’s “Energy Follows Thought”; Adam Grant’s “Hidden Potential”; Yomi Adegoke’s “The List”; Tananarive Due’s “The Reformatory”; Claire McFall’s “Outcasts”; Kehinde Fadipe’s “The Sun Sets in Singapore”; Janet Evanovich’s “Dirty Thirty”; Dave Grohl’s “The Storyteller”; Isabel Ibañez’s “What the River Knows”; Luke Dumas’s “The Paleontologist”; Ashley Herring Blake’s “Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date”; Sandra Newman’s “Julia”; Jana Kramer’s “The Next Chapter”; Janice Hallett’s “The Christmas Appeal”; Lee Child’s “The Secret: A Jack Reacher Novel”; John Grisham’s “The Exchange”; Teju Cole’s “Tremor”; Julia Fox’s “Down the Drain”; and Stephen King’s “Holly.”
The titles in Spotify’s audiobook catalog come from major publishers including Hachette, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster and RB Media, as well as independent authors and publishers globally, including Bolinda, Dreamscape and Pushkin.
Spotify says that according to a recent survey it conducted of more than 1,000 Americans, Gen Z and millennials lead in audiobook listening, with 72% of 18-to-34-year-olds reporting that they listen to audiobooks. Per the survey, relaxation (63%) and comfort (51%) are the top emotions associated with audiobook listening. In addition, 41% of audiobook listeners prefer audiobooks because of cognitive benefits, like improving their memory or keeping their minds active, according to the Spotify survey.
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