Spotify will now sell you books

Spotify will now sell books to its users.

The new feature follows the launch of its popular audiobooks tool, and is part of what the company says its aim of “making reading more flexible, personal, and integrated across moments and formats”.]

Spotify introduced audiobooks in 2022. Initially, users were only able to buy books whenever they wanted to listen to them – but a year later it started letting people listen to 15 hours of a book with their usual subscription.

The bookselling feature will be powered by Bookshop.org, a bookselling website that lets customers buy books through their local independent shops. Spotify said explicitly that the tool was aimed at allowing its users to find books in audio and then buy them as a physical copy.

The company appeared to be concerned about the danger that the sales route could undermine traditional booksellers. “This partnership is designed to be additive, strengthening the existing ecosystem rather than replacing traditional retail channels,” it said in its announcement, and stressed that it hoped that it would help publishers strengthen their relationship with readers.

It is also launching a new tool, “Page Match”, aimed at making that easier. Users can scan a page of their book and be taken to that specific point in an audiobook, or be shown the specific page in a book that will match up with where they are while listening.

“We see the future of reading as one that’s personalized, flexible, and built to move fluidly across formats and moments,” Spotify said in its announcement. “Page Match is an early example of how Spotify is helping shape that future at scale.”

That feature will be available on most English-language titles at launch, and expand over time.

Spotify will also roll out its audiobook recaps feature on Android, after it launched on iOS late last year. That lets people get a round-up of what happened earlier in a book, when they resume listening.