Spotify to Offer Exclusive Audiobooks

Spotify has released an exclusive collection of audiobooks, causing users to believe that the streaming service is testing an audiobook offering.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the platform regularly runs tests like this to help it improve its user experience. If successful, the initiative could give Spotify “a roadmap for how to take on giants in the space, including Amazon-owned Audible”.

Here’s a closer look at the audiobooks on offer:

1. Great Expectations, written by Charles Dickens and narrated by James Langton
2. Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelly and narrated by David Dobrik
3. Cane, written by Jean Toomer and narrated by Audra McDonald
4. Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Bronte and narrated by Sarah Coombs
5. Passing, written by Nella Larsen and narrated by Bahni Turpin
6. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, written by Frederick Douglass and narrated by Forest Whitaker
7. The Awakening, written by Kate Chopin and narrated by Hilary Swank
8. Persuasion, written by Jane Austen and narrated by Cynthia Erivo
9. Red Badge of Courage, written by Stephen Crane and narrated by Santino Fontana

Taking on the world of audiobooks isn’t something new to Spotify, as the platform offers a handful of titles but has done little to promote the programming to its users.

“Last spring, Spotify brought the first book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, to its platform with chapters read by such celebrities as Daniel Radcliffe, David Beckham and Dakota Fanning.”

Spotify Removes its 10,000-Song Library Limit

Spotify has finally removed its 10,000-song cap on library sizes, now allowing users to add as much music as they’d like to their personal libraries. Fixing an issue that has irritated music-lovers on the service for years.

With more than 50-million songs available to customers to stream at any time, until today, there was a hard limit of 10,000 songs that users could save to their own “Your Music” collections on Spotify for easy access.

Users have been requesting that Spotify remove the limit for many years, but the company has previously shown resistance to the suggestion. In 2017, the company commented that removing the limit was unnecessary as 99% of users didn’t mind the limit.

Also notable is that the new system only applies to the ability to save songs to your Spotify library. Individual playlists are still limited to 10,000 items, and users can only download up to 10,000 songs on each of their five different devices for offline listening.