NEW YORK -- The expanding audio books market has a major new retailer: Spotify.
On Tuesday, the music streaming service announced its long-rumored audiobook initiative, launching a store that includes more than 300,000 titles, including such popular works as Delia Owens' 鈥淲here the Crawdads Sing,鈥� Michelle Obama's 鈥淏ecoming鈥� and Colleen Hoover's 鈥淚t Ends With Us.鈥� Spotify has previously offered audio books on a limited basis, including J.K. Rowling's 鈥淗arry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone鈥� and such public domain novels as Mary Shelley's 鈥淔rankenstein鈥� and Jane Austen's 鈥淧ersuasion.鈥�
鈥淲e've always believed that the potential for audio is limitless, and have been saying for a while now that our ambition is to be the complete package for everyone's listening needs,鈥� Nir Zicherman, Spotify's vice president and global head of audiobooks and Gated Content, said Tuesday.
鈥淎udiobooks are next to come into the picture because we see a substantial untapped market: while audiobooks represent just a 6-7% share of the wider book market, the category is growing by 20% year over year.鈥�
Other available works include Dave Grohl's 鈥淭he Storyteller,鈥� James McBride's 鈥淒eacon King Kong鈥� and Emily Henry's 鈥淧eople We Meet On Vacation.鈥�
At least initially, Spotify will sell audio books individually, not on a subscription basis, at prices that are 鈥渃ompetitive鈥� with other sellers. According to a Spotify spokesperson, 鈥淎fter assessing testing and user research, we found that the best initial offering would allow users to purchase books individually,鈥� a policy which 鈥渁llows for pricing flexibility and for more casual listeners to access audio books easily.鈥�
