It has been less than a week but I wanted to share my thoughts, as I know many of you lovely readers are fans of audiobooks. While we have lots of options for listening to audiobooks, Spotify is slowly entering the game. And by slowly, I mean they are periodically rolling out in a few new countries at a time for Premium users. It’s not the worst option for your listening, but I do have some thoughts after listening to my first book. (I chose Aimée Carter’s Royal Blood, it was entertaining but left me with some questions.) Let’s dive into my Spotify audiobooks review!
Spotify Audiobooks- What is it?
If Spotify has launched this feature in your country, Premium users will be given 15 listening hours of Audiobooks per month. This means that instead of almost every other system going by a credit per audiobook, you are bound by the number of hours in a book. And no matter what you speed you listen at, the hours are counted at 1.0x. If you listen to a 10 hour audiobook at 2.0x, you are still listening for 10 hours by Spotify’s count.
Spotify Audiobook Catalogue
In terms of popular fiction and non-fiction, the Spotify audiobook catalogue seems solid. I looked up 5 historical fiction books and found them no problem. If you like history- and you probably do if you are here- you may be more limited. I chose 6 different non-fiction history books to look up and only found 2 of them. I suspect that Spotify will be focusing on larger publishers, but that can be limiting on the non-fiction side of things. At this point, I would not choose this as your primary audiobook service if you prefer non-fiction history and biography.
**Note: not all audiobooks are included in your 15 listening hours. When you look them up, they have to say “Included in Spotify Premium” or else you will be paying separately for them.
Spotify Audiobook Listening Hours
As I explained above, you only get 15 listening hours a month. If you are familiar with audiobooks, most audiobooks are somewhere between 8 and 12 hours. This means that you are going to be able to listen to 1 audiobook and will either have to waste the remaining 6-1 hours, or you are going to have to wait until you get more listening hours in your next billing cycle.
**Note: Any relistening also counts against your hours, so I would recommend not relistening if you do not have to.
Now, Spotify will “let” you purchase 10 additional hours for the low price of $14.99 CAD. These hours do roll over to the next billing cycle, so you do not have to use them in the month, but I’m not a fan of services trying to further milk every consumer for all money possible. (I only have so much money, and I have to pay for rent, bills, pet medication, etc….) I’m assuming that they give the 15 hours in order to bank on someone starting a second audiobook and not wanting to wait, but I’m not going to be doing that. (I’ve currently got a list of 3-4 hour audiobooks to dovetail in- it’s not terribly long, but it will last a couple months, at least.)
Spotify Audiobooks Player
One plus that I do like about the Spotify audiobook setup is that each chapter is treated like an episode (like a podcast). If you are the type of person who has limited space on your phone, you can only download part of it (unlike Libby, Audible, Kobo, etc).
However, if you are like me and listen to audiobooks at a higher speed, know that that speed will carry over to your podcasts. (I switched to a podcast in the car and couldn’t figure out why it was suddenly so fast until I realised it had carried the 1.75x speed over from the audiobook.
Spotify Audiobooks Review
All in all, I would say that this is a mid-level audiobook service. If you are already paying for the Premium version of Spotify, it is nice to have those hours thrown in. (I would absolutely NOT recommend getting Spotify for audiobooks, though. If you want audiobooks, there are much better options.)
The fact that you are either listening to part of a book, you are waiting for the next month for more hours, or you have to make a separate purchase of listening hours is a big downfall for me. (Once again, I’m getting really fed up with companies treating us like a piggy bank to squeeze every dollar out of us.) Also, the limited history and biography options are also a detractor.
You also won’t have them in your library unless you use more hours to relisten. If you are a fan of relistening, this isn’t a great choice. It’s essentially a good bonus if you already subscribe.
Want more audiobooks? Check out my list of the best history audiobooks!
Are you a fan of Spotify audiobooks, or are you sticking with other platforms?
Cheers,
The Historian
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