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*Update Tuesday March 21, 2023: Audiobooks are now available for purchase on Spotify Canada.
*Update Tuesday 22nd November 2022: Audiobooks are now also available for purchase on Spotify in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.
The Spotify you know and love just got bigger with the addition of audiobooks, a catalog of content users have been requesting for years.
Starting today, Spotify listeners in the US will be able to purchase and listen to over 300,000 audiobook titles. This makes Spotify’s platform a true all-in-one destination for everyone’s listening needs. We are also excited to launch Audiobooks with a completely new user interface dedicated to listening to audiobooks. It seamlessly combines audiobooks with the music and podcasts you already listen to and love.
This is just the beginning of your Spotify audiobook journey. We are committed to creating a seamless audiobook experience and will continue to build and innovate on it. for the record sat with Nil ZichermanSpotify’s Vice President and Global Head of Audiobooks and Gated Content, discuss today’s announcement and our vision for the future of audiobooks.
Today we are excited to announce that 300,000 audiobooks are now available on Spotify in the US Why are audiobooks our company’s next frontier?
We have always believed that the possibilities of audio are endless and we have been saying for some time that our ambition is to be the complete package for all your listening needs. Audiobooks are next, as there is quite an untapped market. Audiobooks account for only a 6%-7% share of the overall book market, yet the category is growing 20% year over year.
But what we’re really looking forward to is giving our listeners amazing new experiences.It’s about introducing audiobooks to an audience that might otherwise have never tried them. Introducing audiobooks to Spotify gives us the opportunity to grow the whole space. and Enrich the lives of listeners.
What Listeners Can Expect today?
Starting today, US users can easily find Spotify audiobooks alongside music and podcasts in curated Featured sections in Library, Search and Home.
Audiobooks have a lock icon on the play button to indicate that you must purchase them to hear them. Users who find the audiobook on the Spotify app can purchase it on the webpage. When you return to Spotify, the book will automatically save to your library and you can listen to it anytime.
Once listened to, there are a number of features that user research has shown to be essential for a seamless experience. Listeners can download content for offline playback. And the auto-bookmark feature saves your location so you can easily pick up where you left off. Speed control is also included, giving you various options to speed up or slow down your pace. We’ve also included a rating feature that publishes a book’s overall rating for listeners who want to share their opinions after listening to the book.
Why is Spotify poised to make a positive impact in the audiobook space?
Adding an entirely new content format to our service is no small feat. But we’ve done it with podcasts before and are excited to do the same with audiobooks. We’ve tested, researched, and listened. We hope that starting today, users who find audiobooks on our app will find their experience clear. In other words, audiobooks are a perfect fit for how Spotify is used.
You’ll also have the opportunity to apply what you’ve learned about creators to improve the authors and publishers currently publishing content on Spotify. Providing a great experience for the people behind the audiobooks we love is important to us, and we will soon be rolling out exciting features for creators.
The service currently available in the US is just the first iteration of audiobooks on Spotify. We learned a lot during this launch and will use those learnings to enhance the experience with new features, plan launches in additional markets, and innovate the format to benefit our listeners, authors and publishers.
What are the company opportunities for this offering?
We are faster and more focused than anyone in the audio industry. And we believe audio and feature-length content is a much bigger business than many thought.The expansion into audiobooks is key evidence of that belief. And this is just the beginning.
Introduce your audience to new formats they’ve never consumed before, unlocking a whole new segment of potential listeners, much like we’ve done with podcasting. and connect with fans who love their art, which makes this even more exciting.
What were the challenges in creating and implementing this offering?
As I mentioned earlier, audiobooks are a completely new format for us. We’ve learned a lot about how people like to listen to music and podcasts, but we wanted to provide an experience that’s uniquely in book format. So it took a lot of research and fine-tuning to build that experience in a way that users feel intuitively what they expect from Spotify.
We also knew that Spotify had a lot of features, and we wanted to add a whole new kind of content without overcrowding the platform. We believe the solutions we’ve arrived at feel seamless, but we’re constantly iterating on our products to meet our users’ needs.
What audiobooks do you especially enjoy listening to?
liberation day To george sandersGeorge is one of my favorite authors and his latest collection of short stories is due out just a few weeks after its release.
George usually narrates his own audiobooks, but this one is especially exciting. Because in addition to his own voice, there are a variety of really great narrators. Tina Fey, Stephen Root, Michael McKean, others. I can’t wait to hear it!
Spotify aims to become the world’s most popular audio streaming service, and the introduction of audiobooks marks another milestone in that effort. Click here to visit our audiobook hub and discover top titles and authors from our amazing catalog.
moreover, Spotify: Discover This In an episode that delves deeper into the world of audiobooks, Global Head of Audiobooks, Spotify Nil ZichermanNYT best-selling author Atlas Six Olivi Blake Audiobook Producer, Grammy Award Winner, SVP of Content Production at Penguin Random House Audio Dan Zit Prolific audiobook narrator Julia Whelanan award-winning audiobook narrator Bernie Turpin.
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