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On September 20, 2022, Spotify issued a press launch a few much-requested inclusion to its catalog: audiobooks. Starting that very same day, U.S. listeners had been ready to buy audiobooks instantly from the app. Over the next months, customers in a number of different international locations, comparable to Canada and the UK, had the identical alternative.
Just over a yr later, on October 3, 2023, they introduced that audiobooks would grow to be a part of the Spotify Premium package deal. This made Spotify a one-stop vacation spot for almost all listening wants: music, podcasts, and now audiobooks.
But is it price it? Let’s discover out. If you’ve determined it’s, actually, price it, however you’re struggling to work out how to truly make a purchase order or pay attention to an audiobook on Spotify Premium, let’s go over that too.
A word: Spotify audiobooks are solely accessible in little greater than a handful of nations, so examine that yours is one in every of them earlier than persevering with.
How to Buy an Audiobook on Spotify
The first step is ensuring that you simply’re on the net software, as you may’t purchase in your telephone app simply but. Go to the Search icon, then to the Audiobooks tab. You have nearly 400,000 titles to select from: when you’ve settled on one, click on Play and choose the Get electronic mail choice.
After this, go to your inbox and search for the e-mail that Spotify despatched you. Click on Buy audiobook, and also you’ll be redirected to the ebook web page. Then select Buy, observe the checkout course of, and voilá! You have an audiobook.
While you may solely purchase a ebook on the net app, you may pay attention on any system. In order to guarantee that you’ve got entry to it even offline, go to Your Library, click on on the Audiobooks tab, and obtain your ebook.
Audiobooks on Spotify Premium
As of the October 2023 announcement, Premium customers within the UK and Australia had been allowed 15 hours of audiobook listening each month, with U.S. customers becoming a member of later within the yr. They got entry to a catalog of (as of now) 200,000 titles.
But how do you pay attention to an audiobook on Premium? Go to the catalog and search for audiobooks marked “included in Premium.” Hit play on the primary chapter, and also you’re good to go.
Search and Discoverability
You can discover an audiobook by writer or title by typing it into Search similar to you’d for a music or podcast. Selections are additionally curated for you a lot in the best way Spotify’s music is, with groupings by style, writer, temper, exercise, and extra. Some examples under:
Pros and Cons
Cons
Let’s begin with the cons: initially, it’s regionally restricted. Barely greater than a handful of nations have entry to audiobooks on Spotify. If you’re not within the U.S., Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, or New Zealand, you’ll have to stick to Audible, Everand, and some different platforms on your audiobook wants.
The subsequent situation is with Spotify Premium particularly: you solely have 15 listening hours per thirty days. This is a marked distinction from Audible subscriptions, the place you get a credit score for a full ebook per thirty days, no matter how lengthy that ebook is, in addition to a ton of obtainable audiobooks to borrow. If you’re into Nineteenth-century classics (or George R. R. Martin), you realize that 15 hours simply isn’t going to minimize it. For context, the audiobook of A Game of Thrones is a whopping 33 hours and 46 minutes lengthy.
Another doable con to think about if you happen to’re considering of going with the Premium subscription solely for audiobooks is that not all premium accounts have entry to this characteristic. Spotify Family and Spotify Duo plans solely grant entry to the plan supervisor, and people are restricted to 10 hours a month. If you’ve a person account, nevertheless, you may entry 15 hours of audiobooks per thirty days. But, within the professional column, you do have the choice to buy a 10-hour top-up.
And then there’s the problem that was, admittedly, my first concern when Spotify acquired into audiobooks: what it’s going to imply for authors. According to the British Union Society of Authors, authors and brokers weren’t consulted on license or cost phrases earlier than publishers struck offers with Spotify. And because it’s a well-publicized undeniable fact that streaming websites have harmed artists, this offers me the largest pause. Johnny Geller, an agent at Curtis Brown Literary Agency, stated, “We do not want to follow the disastrous path the music industry went down.”
Pros
There are, after all, professionals, too! If you’ve a person Spotify Premium account in one of many aforementioned international locations, you don’t have to tie your self to anyone ebook that you simply don’t know for positive you’ll love. You can strive totally different audiobooks till you discover the one which works for you.
As talked about beforehand, you’ve the choice to add extra listening hours if the 15 included together with your Premium subscription aren’t sufficient.
Another professional: the choice for Spotify Premium seems to be an excellent one, with 70 % of its catalog comprised of bestselling titles.
There can be the comfort of getting entry to music, podcasts, and audiobooks all in a single app. If you pay attention to lots of music and podcasts and up to a few audiobooks of common size a month, you then’re getting quite a bit for the value of your subscription.
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