Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Spotify Tests Audiobooks Market With Collection of Literary Classics

MacRumors

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
67,618
38,026


Spotify has started releasing audiobook recordings on its streaming platform, indicating the company's intention to further broaden its library of non-music content (via The Hollywood Reporter).

spotify-audiobooks-collection.jpg

The collection of nine audiobooks are in the public domain, but are original recordings that are exclusive to Spotify. The titles include Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, narrated by David Dobrik, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, read by Forest Whitaker, and Kate Chopin's The Awakening, read by Hilary Swank, amongst other classics. From the report:
The other titles that Spotify is releasing as part of the collection are Jean Toomer's Cane, narrated by Audra McDonald; Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, narrated by James Langton; Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, narrated by Sarah Coombs; Nella Larsen's Passing, narrated by Bahni Turpin; and Stephen Crane's Red Badge of Courage, narrated by Santino Fontana.

To accompany the audiobooks, Spotify has commissioned series Sitting with the Classics on Spotify, in which Harvard professor Glenda Carpio offers a deep-dive on each book, exploring the history and breaking down the narratives and themes for a modern audience.
Click to expand...
The classic audiobooks will be available for free globally but promoted only to English-speaking markets including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Germany.

Spotify says the collection is a test to see if the audiobooks gain traction on its streaming service, but if it takes off like podcasts have done on the platform, the company's dive into audiobooks could see it take on rivals like Amazon's Audible and Apple Books in a market that was valued at nearly $2.7 billion in 2019, according to a report from Grand View Research.

Over the past few years Spotify has spent $800 million buying podcasting companies like Gimlet Media and The Ringer, as well as acquiring the rights to popular podcasts like The Joe Rogan Experience. According to today's report, Spotify now has 1.9 million podcasts on its platform and says 22 percent of its 320 million monthly active users engaged with that content during the third quarter of 2020.

Article Link: Spotify Tests Audiobooks Market With Collection of Literary Classics
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/01/26/spotify-tests-audiobooks-market/
Audiobooks are awesome. I have been on audible since last 4 years now and have loved their productions. I am not sure if there are any viable alternatives to Audible at this point with as extensive a catalogue
 
  • Like
Reactions: Apple_Robert
I do enjoy audiobooks for the convenience at times. Audible is really the only current way to go. I already use Spotify so it may be nice just to have one place for music and books but happy with Audible unless Spotify offers something more compelling to move over.

Their issue is competing with the range of titles offered by Audible.
 
For a while now I’ve wondered why books—not just audiobooks, but any books—aren’t ever given a subscription service. Amazon sort of took a stab at it, but they only included titles which were published through them, and those aren’t the books most people wanted to read. Even to purchase outright, Audible (for audiobooks) and Kindle and Kobo (for ebooks) are the only good options I’ve heard of.

I wonder how often Spotify subscribers will use this. If it gets popular, maybe some other players will want to take on books, too.
 
Coming soon from Spotify, a music channel featuring all your favorite public domain hits including Camptown Races, Hail Hail The Gang's All Here, and Bill Bailey Won't You Please Come Home. Sure to be a hit!

edit to add: Although these are all public domain they will be recordings exclusive to Spotify made by automating a Casio keyboard via an Arduino.

edit 2: vocals by Rosanne Barr, Pitbull, William Hung, and an AI recreation of the voice of Florence Foster Jenkins
 
Last edited:
I would so love to use Apple Music exclusively. But I am still forced to use Spofity all the time when I am working on my work PC or gaming on my desktop and PlayStation.

I can't wait for these new apps to be released so I have a pleasant and snappy Apple Musc experience. iTunes and the webplayer are still horribly slow and probably on of the reasons Apple can't beat Spotify, even though they have more features (like iCloud library, tagging, etc)
 
  • Like
Reactions: serpico007
RedTheReader said:
For a while now I’ve wondered why books—not just audiobooks, but any books—aren’t ever given a subscription service. Amazon sort of took a stab at it, but they only included titles which were published through them, and those aren’t the books most people wanted to read. Even to purchase outright, Audible (for audiobooks) and Kindle and Kobo (for ebooks) are the only good options I’ve heard of.

I wonder how often Spotify subscribers will use this. If it gets popular, maybe some other players will want to take on books, too.
Click to expand...
For books, I think it's about how the consumption pattern differs to music and movies. It can take weeks to consume a single book that you buy. So then you wonder if you really need to pay for a subscription at all.

Also the market size. Unfortunately people who read books are far fewer than people who watch movies and listen to music. Audio books even more so.

Technically Audio books is a subscription service, but they have a credit system give only one book a month. Which sort of works for me at least. There are sales where you get two books per credit - or you can buy credits and such. Works out reasonably over the course of an year.
 
  • Like
Reactions: KeithBN and RedTheReader
Spotify has Audiobooks for years in their libary at this point...at least in germany.
Problem is: Spotify is not made to play audiobooks. it doesn´t save the position in your audio book playlist. If you want to listen to some music and then you want to return to your audiobook, you have to remember the number of the track to get back at the right position. A 10hr audiobook can have over 300 tracks.
If they want to expand into audiobooks by a large scale, they have to adapt their app.
 
bpp85 said:
I’m not a fan of audiobooks and I don’t like Spotify adding “non music” in their music app. I would prefer it if they created separate apps. However I heard people like having podcasts and music in the same app so 🤷🏻‍♂️
Click to expand...
100% this. I have asked Spotify multiple times for a switch to turn off Podcasts recommendations. I've also asked if they could move Podcasts to a separate tab. That would probably be the best solution. Three tabs: Music, Books, Podcasts. If I could get one more design in it would be the ability to hide tabs. No way they will ever let you decide what is not recommended tho. I'm betting Podcasts and books will have much higher margins so they want to push you into those.
 
  • Like
Reactions: bpp85 and serpico007
Sorry Spotify.
Add an option to add my own, personal music from my Collection like Apple Music has, clean up that interface, and start paying artists the same or more than Apple does, and then we can talk.
But for now, bloating your “music” Service with podcasts and videos and audiobooks isn’t making me any more interested
 
  • Like
Reactions: bpp85
Lounge vibes 05 said:
Sorry Spotify.
Add an option to add my own, personal music from my Collection like Apple Music has, clean up that interface, and start paying artists the same or more than Apple does, and then we can talk.
But for now, bloating your “music” Service with podcasts and videos and audiobooks isn’t making me any more interested
Click to expand...
I have added my own music to Spotify using a PC and then synced to my phone. Is that something you'd be able to do?
 
RedTheReader said:
For a while now I’ve wondered why books—not just audiobooks, but any books—aren’t ever given a subscription service. Amazon sort of took a stab at it, but they only included titles which were published through them, and those aren’t the books most people wanted to read.
Click to expand...
There is a subscription service for books, its your local library.
 
  • Like
  • Love
Reactions: sphexx, RedTheReader, thejadedmonkey and 2 others
I can’t say I’m surprised with this news. I would be more surprised if Spotify redesigned their app to give us an option to turn things off. I have to agree that I would use Apple Music more if iTunes performed better on Windows desktop. Hope the new apps arrive soon.
 
RedTheReader said:
For a while now I’ve wondered why books—not just audiobooks, but any books—aren’t ever given a subscription service. Amazon sort of took a stab at it, but they only included titles which were published through them, and those aren’t the books most people wanted to read. Even to purchase outright, Audible (for audiobooks) and Kindle and Kobo (for ebooks) are the only good options I’ve heard of.

I wonder how often Spotify subscribers will use this. If it gets popular, maybe some other players will want to take on books, too.
Click to expand...
bookmate.com

Bookmate

An easy way to read, listen to, and discuss books and comic books
bookmate.com bookmate.com
And I use Mofibo here in Denmark https://mofibo.com/dk/da/
$21/month gives you access to 300.000 e-books/audiobooks.
 
The premium version of the TuneIn Radio app used to include audiobooks, and that was paid for within their subscription at $10 a month as part of their overall premium package. I used it for a few months and liked it, being that they had a very large selection of audiobooks, many of them current titles. But a few months after I discovered that feature, TuneIn discontinued audiobooks with no more than a few weeks notice. I then promptly ended my premium subscription, as I had no other reason to keep it. I don't know why Audiobooks were dropped, whether it was a TuneIn business decision or an issue with the publishers, etc. I just know I miss that feature. My only complaint about it is that their "bookmark" would often lose its place if you came back to an audiobook in progress at a later time.
 
Last edited:
and 1989 others said:
There is a subscription service for books, its your local library.
Click to expand...
A bit of Googling has shown me that plenty of public libraries actually have systems in place for borrowing ebooks, and they don’t seem to be particularly complicated either. I’m impressed and surprised that I missed that, since I do visit my local library pretty often. Good tip!
 
  • Like
Reactions: sphexx and and 1989 others
I found DownPour a few years ago, which is a DRM-free audiobook store. Apart from Audible-exclusive content (like content created by Audible), I haven't found any missing books from DownPour. Been really happy with them though the app is a little more finicky than Audible's.

Spotify audiobooks would mostly be interesting to me since my car has a Spotify app so theoretically, I could have better syncing of last-played location between my car, Sonos and mobile devices.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back