Being a Spotify Premium subscriber and not really a major streamer of music (I keep wondering about cancelling), this seems to add a lot of value for me, but maybe not for the authors?
Audiobooks streaming on Spotify…what do we think?
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I had-a look just then. To avoid paying Apple or Google you have yo choose the book off a web page to unlock it , even if choosing a free access book, to unlock it for listening via the app.
This will be a big impediment to people expecting streaming immediacy.
Mrs F favours listening to audiobooks via her library card app thingy. But even the bonkbusters seem to be read out loud by someone with a voice which would be better suited to the shipping forecast. You’d have thought she’d have had enough of listening to some old dullard droning on.
I’ve always picked my audiobooks according to who’s reading – the sample is my friend. In practice this tends to mean British thesps – Juliet Stevenson, Sean Barrett, Martin Jarvis etc. American voices often grate, even when they’re reading American books.
I hate to sound xenophobic but I’m glad you said it first! I also don’t really like American voices for audiobooks.
My favourites: Robert Powell, Stephen Fry, Clive Mantle, Esther Wane, Emma Thompson. Special mention to Chris O’Dowd who is magnificent reading Dubliners.
I can recommend Bill Wallis who does a great job reading Jane Gardam’s “Old Filth” among others. Also, Bill Nighy is great fun in Simon Brett’s Charles Paris novels which are BBC radio productions.
One of the few Audible refunds I’ve sought was for a collection of M R James ghost stories seemingly read by Gomer Pyle. Sort of broke the Oxbridge antiquarian fourth (third? second?) wall.
🤣
I have a vast backlog of audiobooks from a couple of stints with Audible, so I’m not really bothered. The Society of Authors is, however:
“As far as we are aware, no authors or agents have been approached for permission for such licences, and authors have not been consulted on licence or payment terms,” the SoA said. “Publishing contracts differ but in our view most licences given to publishers for licensing of audio do not include streaming. In fact, it is likely that streaming was not a use that had been invented when many such contracts were entered into.”
I’m not an expert in this area, but my feeling is that owners of intellectual property are a bit more organized and a bit less tolerant of the old “Ask forgiveness not permission” tactic of Tech companies these days.
Not a fan. Buy the bloody book.
Thankfully the predicted decline of book sales when Kindle was introduced never materialised.
Only in favour of Audiobooks for the visually impaired.
I like ebooks but I think people underestimated what a great technology books are. Easy to use, compact, portable, tactile (one of the big mistakes CDs made when they set out was to favour the jewel case over paper) and beyond their basic functionality they allow you to present yourself to the world in a certain way via their covers or their spines. Mrs Hawkfall is an interior design fan and so we watch a lot of Youtube videos of people’s houses. Anyone who is presenting themselves to the world as successful always has a shelf of books. Always.
Yeah, I have a kindle but I don’t really use it much. It’s best for purposes of economy and practicality – for example, the extended Mark Lewisohn Beatles book is mega expensive in real life (and huge) but on the kindle it’s affordable and you can take it on holiday in your pocket with you.
Steve, I’m interested in your comment about audiobooks. Are you saying they are inherently unfair to authors? I must admit I’d never thought about it. If I really like an audiobook though, I tend to buy a physical copy of the book just to have and to dip into – so my conscience is eased in that respect!
Of course they aren’t unfair to authors – if they were, authors wouldn’t read their own books so often. I’ve no idea what the royalty structure on audiobooks is – they were called talking books in my day – but you may be sure there is one. Pretty sure the Spotify model is unfair to authors though – see above.
It’s comforting to know that Steve is at least willing to allow the visually impaired to listen to audiobooks, to the exclusion of the rest of us. I’m a reader. According to circumstance I buy actual books and read them, I buy ebooks and read them on my Kobo, I buy audiobooks and listen to them on my iPhone. They’re all books, and the existence of one in no way threatens the others.
According to the spokesperson from Pan Macmillan quoted in The Bookseller, the only titles of theirs on Spotify are those they specifically hold streaming audio rights for. And Penguin Random House are quoted as saying that the number of monthly hours a subscriber can listen for will be capped, so it’s not a limitless free library. (I don’t remember any of that being mentioned in the Guardian piece when it first appeared although they appear to have now lifted the Pan Macmillan quote.)
Regarding Lewisohn, that was one of only two audio books I have listened to. At the time I was without car and spending at least 2 hours a day on a bus. Made the journey pleasurable, and I even looked forward to the next installment every day for a couple of weeks or so.
Where the Kindle wins hands down is travel. For less than the weight of a thin paperback you’ve got an entire library. I do try and switch reading between paper and Kindle at home, but on the road it’s transformatory.
I keep promising myself I will try running to audiobooks, but when it comes to breaking out the headphones and shoes it’s another 90s trance mix (the ultimate running soundtrack IMHO).
Audiobooks are great for when you have a dull job to do, like decorating a room.
Listening to music radio for more than a few hours will drive you bonkers as they repeat their playlist. Radio 4 will have something boring, like Moneybox, every few hours. Switching stations isn’t easy when you have paint on your hands.
Precisely. I made Davidson’s plum* jam the other day, which involved getting the stones out of 2 1/2 kilos of the buggers, and there are two stones in each plum. If that’s not the perfect audiobook circumstance I don’t know what is.
* your Davidson’s plum is a wacky Oz tree, native to NSW and QLD, that grows its fruit on the trunk. When they’re ripe they just fall off, and you pick them up off the ground. No death-defying ladder work.
I’m not a book reader. Since I started to listen to audiobooks on my daily lunchtime walk about 15 years ago, I must have listened to nearly 200. In the previous 30 years I possibly read one book. If audiobooks disappeared tomorrow, I’d almost certainly go back to reading none.
I’m not quite sure how much harm I’m doing to people that want to read the book, after all it’s already been written, the author is getting extra purchases (It’s certainly not unusual for people to by the physical book and the audiobook) and everyone should be happy.
I started my daily walks to improve my physical health and I’m also far less likely to walk into a lamppost listening to a book rather than reading it myself.
I love an audiobook. They are perfect for a commute or a long car journey on my own. My eyes are typically not available (they are shut on a commute and staring at a motor way on a drive) Kindles are great as well – I miainly use mine on holiday when I have some time to read with my eyes.
I wonder why people get irritated by audiobiooks and kndles? People reading a hard copy book don’t annoy me in the slightest – it would seem worrying if I let that kind of stuff bother me.
I used to think it “wasn’t proper reading” but I’ve totally gotten over that. I love audiobooks and I count them as “reading”. I’m otherwise a slow reader who tends to fall asleep, so I’d never get through anything!
Some books are better on Kindle for me as the search function is great for “who was that” moments where some character from 3 chapters ago reappears.