Spotify on Tuesday introduced a new set of tools for authors and publishers distributing their audiobooks on its platform with the launch of Spotify for Authors. Similar to its existing efforts, Spotify for Artists and Spotify for Creators (previously Podcasters), Spotify for Authors will allow writers and publishers to track insights and analytics about their audiobooks’ and catalog’s consumption on the service as well as access a set of promotional tools.
The company notes that the platform will be available to authors and publishers of any size, and will help them to better understand their audience as they’ll learn not only about the books they listen to, but also what sort of podcasts their audience consumes. This unique ability to combine listening data could help authors better determine which podcasts to work with when promoting their book and more generally, what types of shows might work best as places for running ads.
With the analytics, authors, and publishers will gain insights into the aggregated ages and gender demographics of their listeners and use marketing tools like redemption codes for sharing royalty-free copies (if the publisher allows). Spotify will also provide promo cards offering assets designed for sharing across social media.
In addition, authors will now be able to establish author profiles, a new feature rolling out on Spotify that will let fans learn more about their favorite writers, just as they do with their favorite artists.
Next year, the company says it will expand the Spotify for Authors platform with more insights and tools and develop new listening experiences for consumers, like the “follow-along experience” now in testing. This experience includes supporting material from books, like illustrations, photos, and graphics, time-synchronized to the story being read. Over time, Spotify aims to respond to author and publisher feedback as it continues to add more functionality.
The company has been working to expand its audiobooks offering throughout the year, including with an expansion of the feature for Premium subscribers to markets outside the U.S., and the more recent addition of video. The competition in the audiobooks space, long dominated by Amazon’s Audible in the U.S., pushed the e-commerce retailer to recently add one free audiobook with its top music-streaming plan.