Spotify is enhancing its audiobook streaming service by adding a feature familiar to app music consumers: countdown pages. These YouTube-like countdown pages were launched last year alongside Spotify's other new additions for artists, giving artists a dedicated space on their profiles where they can count down to new releases with a timer. Now, the same option will be available to audiobook publishers and authors, the company announced today at the London Book Fair.
For audiobooks, Countdown Pages allows Spotify users to pre-save books before release. When a book becomes available, Spotify alerts users through a notification. This new option allows publishers and authors to promote their books prior to release and generate interest in their upcoming titles, much like they can currently do on other sites such as Amazon, where books can be pre-ordered. I can.
Additionally, when users visit the countdown page to save a title, they can tap the “More Like This” tab and see similar, but already released, books that they can listen to right away. This could encourage further adoption of audiobooks overall.
Countdown pages have been used by artists such as Taylor Swift, Karol G, Florence and the Machine, Paramore, and the Jonas Brothers before expanding into audiobooks. The Jonas Brothers introduced this feature at his Spotify press event last year. Since then, over 80% of users using the pre-save feature now stream new releases within their first week on average.
According to Spotify, the book countdown page will be available in mid-April.
The company also provided an update on the usage of its audiobook service, saying that “millions” of users are currently listening to more than 150,000 titles on the platform since launch. In total, the service offers a catalog of over 200,000 audiobook titles. With the addition of the new countdown page feature, Spotify hopes to further expand adoption of the service by leveraging its larger global user base of over 600 million listeners.
Spotify first announced that audiobooks would become part of its premium subscription in the second half of 2022, starting in the UK and Australia, followed by the US, Canada, and more. A Spotify subscription allows users to stream 15 hours of audiobooks each month. Otherwise, Spotify free users can now opt for a standalone audiobook subscription for $9.99 per month that debuted earlier this month.
The audiobook countdown page will launch in all markets where Spotify audiobooks are available, including the US, UK, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand.