Coalition of Concerned Creators

Spotify: We Demand Transparency for Audiobook Creators

We are writers, musicians, literary agents, and other creators demanding transparency from Spotify. Specifically, we are concerned by the streaming giant’s new audiobook streaming offering and the impact it will have on author compensation, the value of books, and the literary industry more broadly.

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Our Concerns

As authors and supporters of the literary community, we are deeply concerned about Spotify's free bundling of audiobooks in the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States.

While we recognize the accessibility and convenience it provides for listeners, we are concerned that this product may devalue the art form and harm the livelihoods of countless authors who rely on book sales and audiobook royalties to sustain their creative careers.

Making Books Appear Free Devalues Authors’ Work — By placing audiobooks into an existing subscription, Spotify is making them appear to be free and directly competing with the sales that depend on.

All Creators Are Impacted — This is not the first time Spotify has undermined and squeezed creators. Music streaming has had a devastating impact on artists’ incomes. From musicians and podcasters to voice actors, this new avenue for Spotify threatens to devalue all creators’ abilities to make a living.
Authors and Agents Have Not Been Consulted — In an era of declining book sales, audio rights are a crucial and growing part of an author’s income. And yet, the licensing of 200,000+ books to Spotify has been done with zero input from authors and literary agents. These deals are being negotiated behind closed doors with the largest publishers without transparency around terms for authors.
Ads On Audiobooks are Inevitable and Dangerous — With Spotify’s inevitable introduction of ads into their audiobook streaming, the tech giant will squeeze even more profit out of consumers while jacking up prices for those who can afford to pay more to avoid them, and fundamentally change people’s relationships with books. This may be a point of no return for the literary industry.

Our Demand

We demand that Spotify suspend the product and engage in meaningful conversations with authors and their representatives to address our concerns, gather feedback, and collaboratively find solutions.