Spotify is expanding its audiobook service to the US, as US Premium subscribers can now access more than 200,000 titles on the service.
According to the announcement, the platform offers individuals “as well as subscription managers for Family and Duo accounts” 15 hours of listening per month. Spotify states that this is about the length of “two average audiobooks.” Once the allotted time is up, you can purchase a “top-up” for $12.99, which will add an additional 10 hours to your listening time. A company representative told us that the remaining time after a top-up carries over to the next month if you decide to buy a new one. Purchased allocations “expire one year after purchase.”
You can purchase these top-ups in the Settings menu of your account. There will also be a bar showing how many hours you have listened so far.
Once you update the app on your mobile device, you will see books in the app marked ‘Included in Premium’ that you can play immediately. We say ‘should’ because we haven’t seen the labels in our experience. we noticed there was a new Audiobook tab at the top of the screen.
Tapping on it took us to another part of the platform where we could listen to an audiobook. You can also go to the search bar and check out the titles Spotify has available. There you have classics like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and newer books such as The mansion by Gilly Macmillan.
This update is available on the desktop version of Spotify, although not in the same way. To find audiobooks, we had to click on the search function on the left and then select the required item. We didn’t come across the “Included in Premium” label, nor did we come across audiobooks on the homepage. Granted, the patch is still being rolled out to users. Maybe Spotify will release the patch in chunks instead of all at once.
Possible bugs
We would like to mention that there may be some bugs in the patch. During testing, we were able to enjoy audiobooks on a free account without any restrictions. We asked the same representative from earlier about this scenario, but they simply stated that “access is available to eligible Spotify Premium users.” It’s possible that we just encountered a random bug on the platform that gave us unfettered access. You may or may not experience this – just a warning.
The rest of the announcement is about some Spotify stats plus some audiobook recommendations. The platform suggests Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien, if you want to get started ‘your literary journey’, For music lovers there are several musical biographies available at the platform.
For all you bibliophiles out there, check out Ny Breaking’s list of the best audiobook sites for 2023 if you want another source for reading.