AI voice and text-to-speech provider ElevenLabs issued a press release celebrating their expanding relationship with Bertelsmann and its subsidiaries. “So far, 36 Bertelsmann companies are using our technology to improve production and try new approaches. AI dubbing and multi-language audio are just the start. Together, we’re finding ways to share stories across languages and formats, reaching more people in more places.” Storytel invested in ElevenLabs and has been working with them to produce AI-narrated audiobooks since mid-2023. And Harper Collins started working with ElevenLabs earlier this year to create AI audiobooks of select foreign language backlist titles. In June, ElevenLabs […]
Audio
Spotify For Authors Offers Demographic Insights
Spotify has launched Spotify for Authors, which offers additional information for publishers and authors about audiobook readers. “For publishers, Spotify for Authors expands on the catalog management and royalty reporting currently offered in Passport, with insights and analytics to help them better understand their audiences and catalog consumption on Spotify,” according to Spotify. “The platform also provides promotional tools to help publishers enhance their presence on Spotify and expand their listener bases.” Authors—who must be invited by their publishers to access—are able to see age and gender demographics of their listeners, shareable review copy codes and social media assets, and […]
Bloomsbury Enters Licensing Deal With Spotify
Bloomsbury has entered a distribution agreement with Spotify to make its books available through the app’s Audiobooks in Premium feature. Titles will be available to Premium subscribers in the UK, US, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, and also can be purchased a la carte, for those who don’t subscribe. Bloomsbury director of audio Sam Halstead said in a release, “The digital audio market continues to see strong growth globally, and our priority is to ensure that our authors’ and narrators’ works are part of this… The Spotify service is incredibly seamless and we feel confident that this partnership will […]
Amazon Tries A Belated Response to Spotify’s Free Audiobook Listening
As Spotify discernibly grows the audiobook market with their inclusion of 15 hours of audiobook listening per month as part of their premium subscriptions, Amazon has responded with their own similar offer. In a press release on Tuesday, they announced that Amazon Music subscribers in the US, UK and Canada can listen to one full audiobook per month as part of their Unlimited plan, at no additional cost. They say it’s available across the full Audible catalog of over 1 million audiobooks.
Audiobooks Contribute to Higher Spotify Margins
In its third quarter earnings report on Tuesday, Spotify noted that audiobooks (along with music) contributed to a gross margin increase for the brand’s premium offering, up 473 bps to 31.1 percent. Premium subscribers grew 12 percent compared to a year ago, up to 252 million. Those subscribers are up 6 million from the second quarter and the company expects to add another 8 million in the current quarter. Overall sales for the company were up 19 percent to €3.988 billion ($4.227 billion at current exchange rates) and operating income was €454 million. According to the Wall Street Journal, “a […]
Story Confirms That Spotify Is Paying Real Money to Publishers
Since Spotify started offering US premium subscribers 15 hours of audiobook listening a month at no extra cost nearly a year ago, we know the company has been putting real money into the hands of publishers and authors, marking one of the few initiatives in our world from a big tech player that actually seems to have grown the market. (When Spotify launched a regular, a la carte audiobook sales program the year before, the impact was minor at best.) Digital audio had been growing a lovely 12 to 15 percent a year by industry statistics and through the first […]