Spotify Audiobooks

[Catlady]

From the New York Times:

Spotify Makes a Bet on Audiobooks

The streaming service that transformed the music industry is expanding into audiobooks, and will offer more than 300,000 titles on a pay-per-book model.

The prices seem way high to me and the selection seems quite limited. Search is awkward, at least on the web site; I don't do Spotify so I don't know what the app interface is like. I don't see anything to indicate that one can listen to a purchased audiobook outside the app.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Catlady

The prices seem way high to me and the selection seems quite limited. Search is awkward, at least on the web site; I don't do Spotify so I don't know what the app interface is like. I don't see anything to indicate that one can listen to a purchased audiobook outside the app.

I can’t see going from Audible to Spotify. The prices are higher, the selection poorer and it’s yet another app. There might be a tiny market of people who prefer ad hoc purchases rather than a subscription, but I still don’t see how they can expect to charge much over $14.95 for the convenience factor, when you can always join Audible, grab the book you want and quit. (I don’t know if they cut off people who make a habit of that.) Or just pay the Audible price.

So their market has to be existing Spotify customers whom they hope to lure into audiobooks, but I still can’t see someone who’s paying $9.99/month for as much music as they want paying these eye-popping prices for a single book. And speaking personally, I think there’s even less of a case to be made for audiobook ownership than music anyway. It’s the very rare audiobook I can imagine listening to more than once.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by issybird

I can’t see going from Audible to Spotify. The prices are higher, the selection poorer and it’s yet another app. There might be a tiny market of people who prefer ad hoc purchases rather than a subscription, but I still don’t see how they can expect to charge much over $14.95 for the convenience factor, when you can always join Audible, grab the book you want and quit. (I don’t know if they cut off people who make a habit of that.) Or just pay the Audible price.

So their market has to be existing Spotify customers whom they hope to lure into audiobooks, but I still can’t see someone who’s paying $9.99/month for as much music as they want paying these eye-popping prices for a single book. And speaking personally, I think there’s even less of a case to be made for audiobook ownership than music anyway. It’s the very rare audiobook I can imagine listening to more than once.

Also, most of the titles I saw in my cursory look at Spotify seemed to be major titles from major publishers--readily available at any library with a decent OverDrive collection. Audible is attractive because it offers a huge range of books that aren't so readily available--like the 15 books I just bought during the sale!

[Quoth]

There might be a lot of people that prefer ad hoc to subscriptions if "cost of living rises" and they could easily buy content without DRM at a sensible price.

Big companies prefer selling subscriptions (Satellite, Cable, streaming, music, ebooks & audiobooks) because there is very much more profit and secondly a captive customer. Subscriptions are only good value to consumers that would consume what's available by purchase if the sub didn't exist. The top consumers are also being subsidized by the average subscriber.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by Quoth

There might be a lot of people that prefer ad hoc to subscriptions if "cost of living rises" and they could easily buy content without DRM at a sensible price.

Big companies prefer selling subscriptions (Satellite, Cable, streaming, music, ebooks & audiobooks) because there is very much more profit and secondly a captive customer. Subscriptions are only good value to consumers that would consume what's available by purchase if the sub didn't exist. The top consumers are also being subsidized by the average subscriber.

That's true of yearly subscriptions, but the current sellers in the audiobook market offer monthly subscriptions so you're not locked in. And in any case, they allow purchases without a subscription. I spot-checked a couple of books at Spotify and found that Audible and Downpour both showed nonmember prices lower that Spotify's. (Audiobooks.com was a tad higher, and Libro.fm was significantly higher.)

Spotify may expose a new audience to audiobooks and get them to purchase a book or two, but I find it hard to believe that it will retain any audiobook converts, who will find much better prices elsewhere, even without subscribing.

[Quoth]

Agreed that Spotify pricing seems to make their offering dead. Esp if you need a Spotify app.

I'm sceptical that Spotify would identify any significant new audiobook market.

[booklover6]

I'm a spotify customer. When I looked at the audio books a week or two ago, I didn't realize you had to pay for them. I thought they were included! There were only about 15, so maybe I wasn't in the pay per book section. IDK. I'll stick with the services I have, Audible, hoopla, a few random places that I have some books from. I'd be afraid Spotify would play the parts out of order.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by booklover6

I'm a spotify customer. When I looked at the audio books a week or two ago, I didn't realize you had to pay for them. I thought they were included! There were only about 15, so maybe I wasn't in the pay per book section. IDK. I'll stick with the services I have, Audible, hoopla, a few random places that I have some books from. I'd be afraid Spotify would play the parts out of order.

Two weeks ago was apparently before the audiobook launch and the additions to the catalog.

[Paperbackstash]

I am Spotify Premium and use it for a long of things - Music in folders, playlist creation and fun with that and Adobe Express, Podcasts in folders and subjects, ambience effects to a degree, but no interest at all in their Audiobooks. yech.