Audiobooks are booming, thanks to streaming subscriptions

The most popular musicians on Spotify this week included plenty of familiar names, from Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars to Billie Eilish. But also riding high in the streaming platform’s charts were some unexpected stars, including Jane Austen, J.R.R. Tolkien and Boris Johnson.

Spotify, best known as a music streamer, now deals in audio of all kinds. A year ago it began giving customers on its paid tier 15 free hours of audiobooks, equivalent to about a book and a half, per month. The plan has since been rolled out in ten mainly English-speaking markets; rock and pop now jostle for position in the charts alongside fantasy and politics (Mr Johnson’s autobiography embraces both).

This month Amazon announced that it would follow Spotify’s lead and give subscribers to its music-streaming service access to audiobooks, with one free book a month from Audible, its sister company. Amazon’s Music Unlimited has little more than a third as many subscribers as Spotify, which boasts 252m worldwide. But in Audible it has by far the dominant player in audiobooks, accounting for more than half the market.

Amazon’s move promises to add fuel to an audiobook boom. Sales so far this year are 27% higher than in the same period in 2023, according to the Association of American Publishers, a trade body, helped by Spotify’s entry into the market. Once something of a footnote in the publishing world, audiobooks now make up 12% of America’s consumer book market, a bigger share than e-books (see chart).

Streaming is resented by many musicians and record companies, who pine for the days when listeners bought CDs for $15 a pop rather than streaming tracks for a fraction of a cent each. Book publishers are more enthusiastic. Music bosses “would kill for the deal we have”, boasts one, who says a stream on Spotify earns about the same as a physical book sale, once a lowish threshold of listening has been reached. Streaming platforms also bring in new readers by pointing them to books related to podcasts they have enjoyed.

The audiobook boom has given a particular boost to certain types of authors. Spotify says its subscribers are using their free hours to try out less “safe” choices—if they are not gripped after a few minutes, they can switch to a different title at no cost. Audiobook consumers skew young and male, which is reflected in the many non-fiction and self-improvement titles in Spotify’s charts. Publishers have long fretted that the digital world is dragging readers away from books. Now, for once, it might be helping.

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