Spotify has long been a music streaming giant. It added podcasts to its listening platform back in 2015. And–joy of joys for bookworms everywhere!–it just added audiobooks, too.
What does this mean? It means that Spotify’s 236 million paid subscibers will now receive 15 hours of audiobook listening every month as part of their membership. This is a win/win for readers and authors!
It’s great for readers because many of you may already be Spotify subscribers and now, in addition to music and podcasts, you’re receiving enough audiobook hours to listen to 1 or 2 books (depending on their length) each month. This model is great because you don’t have to buy an audiobook to listen. Instead, you can try an audiobook for 5 or 15 or 30 or 50 minutes and if you realize that the story or the narrator isn’t your cup of tea–no problem. You don’t have to return that book. You just start listening to something else.
It’s great for authors because Spotify compensates us based on how long its users listen to our books. I recently received my largest-ever monthly royalty payment for audiobooks thanks to Spotify subscribers who listened to Memory Lane!
One of my readers told me this last week that Ryan Hudson’s voice “makes me swoon so hard”. LOL! The audio clip above gives a glimpse into why.
UPDATE: the 99 gift codes for Memory Lane’s audiobook that I offered in this post have been claimed. 🙂
In other news . . . Rocky Road (book 2 in the series following Memory Lane) releases on Valentine’s Day in less than a week! The countdown is on. The print book, ebook, and audiobook will all become available on that day.
Do you listen to audiobooks? If so, which platform do you use?
Becky Wade
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Great post, Becky, and thanks for the heads up on Spotify and audiobooks. CONGRATS on your upcoming release, my friend!
Thanks so much!!
Becky, that’s great to hear about Spotify. I don’t have any audiobooks that I control (all done through publishers), so didn’t know about Spotify payouts.
As a reader, I’ve stated often what a rabid audiobook listener I am. About 70 titles per year. Sometimes more. I have an Audible membership so I buy those books with credits and sometimes I purchase through Amazon along with a Kindle book deal. Audible also offers free titles to borrow and I make use of those. And I have an Everand (used to be Scribd) subscription, so listen to at least half of the books each year via that platform. I recently bought an audiobook direct from an author and listened through the BookFunnel app. Excellent experience there! Over the years, I’ve also bought from Chirp and Christian Audio.
Wow! You have a wide breadth of listening experience at different platforms. I’ve been an Audible subscriber for a long time and, like you, make use of some of their free content as well as sometimes buying audiobooks on sale there. I’m glad to know you had a positive experience listening via BookFunnel! That’s how I distribute the audiobooks readers purchase from me on my site. 🙂
This is so interesting, Becky. Thank you for sharing. As I start to explore indie options, including audio, I’ll be keeping this in mind. 🙂 I don’t listed to audiobooks as much as I once did, so I stopped paying for Audible. I do listen through Hoopla on occasion and have a few with Chirp as well. I’m not a big Spottify user, but my kids are. 🙂
And your kids are readers, yes? It’s so cool that they can listen to books now with their memberships. 🙂
Thanks for keeping us up to date on this, Becky! I had no idea. I might look into Spotify again now. 🙂 So excited to read your new release!
Thanks, D’Ann!
I hate I’m late looking at my emails and missed this free audiobook code. I do listen to lots of audiobooks. I use Audible, Spotify, Chirp, BookFunnel and a couple more apps.