According to The New York Times (full story here), “Digital audio has grown by double digits year-over-year for more than a decade. Audiobook revenues totaled $1.67 billion last year, up 25 percent from 2020, according to the Audio Publishers Association. Last year, nearly 74,000 audiobooks were released, compared to some 7,200 in 2011.”
RAIN notes that the “more than 300,000” number is consistent with Spotify’s $109 million November 2021 acquisition of Findaway, an audiobooks distributor.
In the example shown above, the book “Atomic Habits” is priced at $18.49 for 5-1/2 hours of audio. Note that this is wildly more expensive than most subscription podcasts on a cost-per-hour-of-content basis
Read the full announcement from Spotify here.