Spears memoir most listened to as Spotify pays publishers ‘tens of millions’

Spotify said it has paid audiobook publishers ‘tens of millions’ since launching its limited-streaming audiobook offer to subscribers in the UK, Australia and the US last year, reported the Bookseller.

A spokesperson for Spotify said users have listened to over 90,000 individual titles from the platform’s catalogue of over 200,000 audiobooks, and that the catalogue continues to grow each month. Britney Spears’s memoir The Woman in Me (S&S) is the most listened to on the platform, with Spotify stating it was ‘outpacing projected sales’.

Spotify said this result ‘underscores our commitment to incrementally growing the pie for authors and the publishing industry’.

‘It’s early days, but we’re incredibly excited about what we’re seeing since launching audiobooks in Premium in the UK, Australia and the US three months ago. The results show that the introduction of audiobooks is driving a meaningful incremental revenue stream for the publishing community. We feel good about future growth and will keep working closely with authors, agents and publishers to share learnings as we get further along in this journey together.’

As previously reported by Books+Publishing, Spotify launched its limited-streaming audiobook option last year, with a catalogue including titles from major publishers including Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, and RB Media, as well as independent authors and publishers globally, including Bolinda, Dreamscape, and Pushkin.

Category: International news