Spotify rolls out an audiobook-only subscription

Spotify announced a new subscription tier that "gives booklovers more listening options." But subscribers would only save $1 a month compared to the classic Premium tier.

The monthly subscription costs $9.99 and includes 15 free listening hours of audiobooks, the same as the classic Premium plan. But $10.99 Premium subscribers get 15 hours of audiobooks, plus ad-free music and podcasts - whereas the audiobook plan still has ads for music and podcast services. Essentially, audiobook listeners are paying nearly the same amount while getting half the benefits.

At first glance, it might seem odd for Spotify to offer an audiobook-only tier at this price. Spotify Premium, which costs $11 per month, has the same 15 hours of audiobook listening time as well as other perks. However, audiobooks often take somewhere in the realm of between seven and 11 hours to listen to.

As such, Spotify is undercutting Audible to a degree. That platform offers one audiobook credit per month for $15. So, for $5 less with Spotify, you might be able to listen to roughly two books per month (unless you prefer to enjoy epic novels that are around 1,000-plus pages long in print). It's worth bearing in mind, though, that unused listening time does not carry over into the next month.

For months, anger has been brewing in publishing about Spotify's treatment of audiobooks, especially around compensation. Some publishers like Macmillan told writers that royalty payments will only apply for each full listen of their book, according to Bloomberg - one person listening to a full 10-hour-long audiobook or two people each listening to five hours, for example. This is different from other models, where authors are paid for purchases of their titles, regardless of how much the listener consumes. Bloomberg notes that different publishing houses may have different terms with Spotify.

Some warn that the streaming model will result in authors being paid less as readers move from buying books to streaming portions of the work. Spotify has claimed it's paid "tens of millions" of dollars to publishers since it first introduced the 15 hours of free listening for paying subscribers.

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