Storytel, Audible, Kobo, Google Audiobooks, Podimo, Nextory, Audioteka… the list of platforms that offer audiobooks in Spain is so extensive that almost everyone in the sector assumes, more or less veiled, that it is a bubble. The latest to join this fever is BookBeat. Of Swedish origin like Storytel, a week ago, in full preview of the Frankfurt Fair, announced his landing in Spain and Italy just eight months after landing in the Netherlands and Belgium.
The novelty of BookBeat is that its offer is not unlimited, but for hours of listening. Most platforms offer their subscribers an oceanic catalog in exchange for a monthly fee or individual purchases per title, but BookBeat proposes another formula: pay for hours listened. There are three rates, with prices ranging from 6.99 euros for 20 hours per month up to 14.99 euros for 100 hours per month and a third halfway, of 9.99 euros for 50 hours. The company already has some 700,000 subscribers, most of them spread across Germany, Sweden and Finland.
The ‘boom’ of the pandemic
The audiobook market is one of the most dynamic: the pandemic triggered worldwide listening to narrated books, sound fictions and podcastsand the extraordinary proliferation of platforms willing to seduce the reader-listener shows that habits have changed: we have become accustomed to listening.
The market is moving, and in what way: in the midst of the rumors that point to the acquisition of Storytel by one of the two big platforms (Audible, which belongs to Amazon, and Spotify), another tectonic movement has just shaken the sector. By the end of September, Spotify announced its entry into the audiobook business in the United States. The bombing has been noticed in the publishing business fair that until this Sunday brings together the entire sector with a wide marketing display in the form of advertisements, illuminated signs and a talk by Nir Zicherman, Vice President of Spotify and responsible for the new division.
The Swedish giant changed more than a decade ago the way we listen to music and with it the record industry itself. So it’s no wonder its entry into the audiobook arena has put its competitors on guard. Spotify has started with a catalog of 300,000 books among which are titles of Stephen King and Michelle Obama. But in an unusual move that somewhat contradicts its all-inclusive streaming policy, it will sell audiobooks a la carte and not at a flat subscription rate.
188 million subscribers
Spotify has 188 million subscribers worldwide and in recent years it has capitalized like no one else on the explosion of the podcast. It hosts hits as massive as they are controversial, such as The Joe Rogan Experience, with 11 million listeners, who in the midst of a pandemic was accused of spreading covid falsehoods, which infuriated artists such as Neil Young or Joni Mitchell, who threatened to withdraw their music from the platform. Interestingly, the Swedish giant has failed to turn a profit to date, but continues to expand and seduce investors. We will see how he adapts his famous algorithm of musical recommendations to books.
In the United States, audiobooks are having a sweet moment. According to the Audio Publishers Association, 74,000 were released last year (10 times more than in 2011) and 2021 annual sales were $1.67 billion, up 25% from the previous year. The undisputed leader in the North American market is Audible, which belongs to Amazon, with 760,000 titles.
20 million hours
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Audible landed in Spain two years ago and according to the company, accumulates more than 20 million hours of content listened to. From its catalog stand out bestsellers such as ‘In case the voices come back’ by Ángel Martín, the Harry Potter saga narrated by Leonor Watling or ‘Sherlock Holmes’ voiced by José Coronado. His last bet is ‘Everything is going to get better’, the posthumous novel by Almudena Grandes, narrated by Aitana Sánchez-Gijón. And prepare for 2023 in “audiodrama & rdquor; (which would be a somewhat smaller adaptation of a novel, like the sound equivalent of a movie) of the latest novel by Dolores Round.
According to a company study, 27% of Spaniards claim to have listened to at least one audiobook in the last year and 73% of already consume audio entertainment (podcast, audiobook, sound fictions), which represents an increase of 18% compared to 2021. The majority of users (61%) consume audio entertainment at home, 49 % do it during road trips and 24% while doing household chores.