(Credit: Spotify)
If you're someone who wishes to dig into long-form articles, but just can’t find the time or patience to do it, Spotify is trialing 650 narrated articles in its audiobooks library.
Each narrated article is produced by the streamer’s in-house Spotify Audiobooks team and runs for less than two hours. The initial lot is a curated collection of stories from publications including Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, Vogue, Variety, Billboard, Vibe, GQ, Wired, Vanity Fair, and Pitchfork.
The articles will be available in English across Spotify’s 22 audiobook markets. Premium subscribers can access them without paying extra. Listening hours will be deducted from your 15-hour monthly audiobook allowance. If you exhaust your monthly allowance, there’s an option to top up. Free or non-paying users can purchase narrated articles for $1.99 each.
“With Articles, we’re introducing long-form journalism in audio as a natural extension of the music, podcasts, and audiobooks people already come to Spotify for, focused on topics we know they love,” said Colleen Prendergast, Spotify Audiobooks’ licensing lead.
“As we have seen with bringing audiences over from podcasts, Articles will allow people to trial shorter, less intimidating listens, opening the gateway to explore longer-form listening like books,” Spotify added.
Spotify launched audiobooks in 2022 and has since added multiple features to make its offerings more interesting. The company says its audiobooks have reached tens of millions of readers, while listening hours have grown 60% year over year. Last month, the music streamer also began selling physical books in partnership with bookshop.org.