Spotify launches Audiobooks, requires separate purchase

Spotify has officially launched Audiobooks in the United States, with users in the country getting access to a library of over 300,000 titles starting today. Spotify users in the U.S. will see a dedicated section from where they can purchase new audiobook titles via a web link, the Music streaming platform noted in its official blog post.

When you select an audiobook title, you will see a lock icon, indicating that it requires a purchase to listen to the content. Once you complete the purchase, all your titles will appear in your library for you to listen to anytime anywhere, as it supports offline listening. The newly launched service will support all the controls you get while listening to music and podcasts.

Spotify will learn your activity over time so that it can recommend the best audiobook titles. It will be similar to how the platform recommends songs from different artists, podcast episodes, and albums. “This is just the beginning of Spotify’s audiobooks journey. We’ve been working to create a seamless audiobooks experience, and we’ll continue to build and innovate on this in the future,” the company said in its official blog post.

Spotify has good news and bad news for users outside the United States. The bad news is that the audiobook service is not available in other markets at launch, but the company has confirmed that the service will debut in other markets in the future. However, it has not shared any timeline for when users outside the U.S will be able to listen to audiobooks in the Spotify app.

Do you prefer listening to audiobooks over the conventional way of reading them? If yes, what titles are you purchasing today? Let us know in the comments section below.