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Spotify recently started offering 15 hours of audiobook listening time to their Premium subscription benefits. As a Spotify Premium and an Audible subscriber, I was naturally eager to see how Spotify holds up. It seemed to me that this could be a huge competitor for Audible. After all, Spotify has a huge client base already, and a catalogue of over 200,000 books (including indie authors via their Findaway Voices programme) to choose from.

After testing out Spotify to listen to a recent book club pick (I’ll link the book at the end – it’s a goody), I noted some interesting pros and cons, and what I feel is something of an oversight.

Pros

Spotify’s 15 hour allowance can work out really well for you depending on the length of the audiobooks you select. Audible only gives you one credit a month which will get you one book, even if it is short. Spotify’s allowance enables you to listen to as many books as you can fit into the hours, and then you can top up in blocks of 10 hours if you need more listening time.

If, like me, you are already a Spotify Premium user, then getting access to their catalogue of audiobooks is a bonus. If I were to run out of credits on Audible, I can now get another book from Spotify.

Many books now include a Spotify playlist, so the ability to read the book and listen to the playlist in one place helps to enhance the reading experience.

The interface is super easy to use and with such a large catalogue (about the same as Audible’s), there is plenty of opportunity to use it.

Cons

Spotify audiobook minutes expire at the end of the month, where as any unused credits from Audible roll over and can be used whenever you like. They can also be used to buy a gift for someone else.

If you select a long book, then 15 hours will not be long enough to listen to it all and you would have to wait for the next set of minutes to finish a book, or top up.

Spotify audiobook minutes are not impacted if you speed the book up to listen to it in less time. It WILL continue to consume minutes if you rewind parts to listen to it again though.

Like Audible, Spotify does not offer a percentage read feature. I think that this is a massive missed opportunity. [I have created a FREE reading tracker that includes a percentage read calculator for listening time or pages. You can access it under the resources page.]

Currently, only the plan manager (the person who pays for the subscription) gets the 15 hours listening time, even if you are on the Duo or Family Plan. It would appear that the hours are not available on the Student Plan.

Potential

I would love to see a playlist feature for books added at some point. A collaborative playlist feature would potentially be amazing for book club or buddy reads. Imagine being able to listen to books and collaboratively created playlists together? This could be massive, especially for indie authors in particular.

Conclusion

I am happy that Spotify have chosen to offer audiobooks to its users. However, I am not sure that offering listening minutes will work in the long run. I hope that Spotify will adapt its use as it gets more feedback. There is some incredible potential to really corner the market audiobook market if it plays to its strengths. I don’t think I will be cancelling my Audible subscription just yet though.

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