Spotify acquires audiobook platform Findaway

Spotify has announced plans to acquire the audiobook services and distribution company Findaway for an undisclosed price. The company operates multiple businesses, including distributing audiobooks to various platforms and offering audiobook creation services under its business Findaway Voices. The company pairs authors with narrators, which could become a new and valuable source of revenue for Spotify.

It also makes Spotify both a commercial bookseller and a publisher of audiobooks, a title the company has been hesitant to accept for its podcasting efforts. The purchase also marks Spotify’s most significant investment in audiobooks, and is the latest sign of its ambition to grow beyond a music app to become the default service for audio of all kinds.

Gustav Soderstrom, the company’s chief research and development officer, commented: “The goal is for Spotify listeners to be able to buy any audiobook in the world. If you are a true-crime podcast junkie, you are buying true crime audiobooks as well. Spotify has experimented with audiobooks for a couple of years, offering some titles in the public domain, like “Jane Eyre,” for free.”

The company also sold an audiobook from journalist Malcolm Gladwell. It has spent billions of dollars buying podcast studios and technology. The company expects the purchase to close this year, at which point it will begin adding more audiobooks to its service. Publishers and authors working with Findaway must agree to distribute on Spotify and it will sell individual audiobooks to all of its users.

Authors and publishers who use their own payment processing technology will be able to keep all of the sales, while those who use Spotify’s technology will share the revenue. Individual authors will be able to self-distribute books. Findaway will maintain its headquarters in Solon, Ohio, and will continue to be led by founder and Chief Executive Officer Mitch Kroll.

Amazon.com Inc.’s Audible is the dominant player in audiobooks, and Spotify hopes to compete by putting books in front of its nearly 400 million listeners.