What do you primarily use Spotify for? Enjoying music? Keeping up with your favorite podcasts? Listening to audiobooks? Well, the next time you open it (at least on Android) you might just use it to shop for a book—not just an ebook, mind you, but a physical book.
Spotify is officially a bookseller
As reported by TechCrunch, Spotify is now selling physical books on its Android app to users in the U.S. and the U.K., with plans to roll out the feature to iPhones next week. The company first announced the initiative back in February, revealing that it was partnering with Bookshop.org to facilitate the transactions. This isn’t your typical corporate agreement, either: Bookshop.org is designed to connect buyers to their local independent bookstores, rather than some enormous conglomerate or distributor. Bookshop says that 50% of the book sale price goes directly to the publisher (who then pays the author), while 30% goes to the bookstore you choose upon purchase. Another 10% goes towards a profit-sharing fund that is distributed among all the bookstores the site works with.
It might seem a bit silly to think of buying a book through Spotify, an app originally meant solely for music. But like many platforms, Spotify has adapted and grown its offerings over the years. It already sold audiobooks, so why not print and e-books? In effect, Spotify is now directly competing with Amazon as a place you can go for all your literary needs, whether you prefer to read or listen to your books. Maybe a Spotify-branded e-reader is up next—though the last time Spotify tried to sell its own device, it didn’t end up working out too well.
Note that there isn’t a dedicated storefront for buying books on Spotify. Instead, you’ll see a “Get a copy for your bookshelf” button appear under individual audiobooks. When you choose this, you’ll be taken to that book’s Bookshop.org page.
What do you think so far?
Spotify’s “Page Match” and “Audiobook Recaps” are getting updates too
In addition to this news, Spotify also announced an update to Page Match, its feature that lets you sync your place in a book using your phone’s camera. Now the feature supports over 30 languages, including French, German, and Swedish. Spotify’s audiobook summarization feature, “Audiobook Recaps,” is also now accessible on Android. Previously, this feature was exclusive to iOS, and let users listen to a summary of what they had already listened to in an audiobook.
There have also been updates to audiobook charts across the app, which show customers which books are currently the top sellers. Audiobook charts recently launched in Germany, and users in the U.S. and U.K. now have a dedicated chart for the most popular kids and family-oriented audiobooks, too.
