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Spotify announced<\/a> a new subscription tier that \u201cgives booklovers more listening options.\u201d But subscribers would only save $1 a month compared to the classic Premium tier.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The monthly subscription costs $9.99 and includes 15 free listening hours of audiobooks, the same as the classic Premium plan. But $10.99 Premium subscribers get 15 hours of audiobooks<\/a>, plus ad-free music and podcasts \u2014 whereas the audiobook plan still has ads for music and podcast services. Essentially, audiobook listeners are paying nearly the same amount while getting half the benefits.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The audiobook plan also doesn\u2019t add any additional perks for readers. If I were a big audiobook person, I\u2019d probably want more than 15 hours a month, for example. But Spotify is capping the listening limit for Premium subscribers and<\/em> the book lovers option. For $12.99, subscribers can buy 10 extra hours<\/a> of books if they run out between billing cycles. The new tier almost feels like it\u2019s simply upselling potential subscribers to the regular Premium option, instead of encouraging people who love audiobooks to subscribe for that service.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n One benefit could be Spotify\u2019s library of options. Audible\u2019s basic plan, priced at $7.95 a month, only covers a selection of audiobooks, compared to the 200,000 titles Spotify is opening up. On the other hand, Audible allows for unlimited listening. A higher priced Audible tier at $14.95 includes unlimited listening to the basic plan library, plus one credit a month to purchase any book that you get to keep.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n For months, anger has been brewing in publishing about Spotify\u2019s treatment of audiobooks, especially around compensation. Some publishers like Macmillan told writers that royalty payments will only apply for each full listen of their book, according to Bloomberg<\/em><\/a> \u2014 one person listening to a full 10-hour-long audiobook or two people each listening to five hours, for example. This is different from other models, where authors are paid for purchases of their titles, regardless of how much the listener consumes. Bloomberg <\/em>notes that different publishing houses may have different terms with Spotify.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Some warn<\/a> that the streaming model will result in authors being paid less as readers move from buying books to streaming portions of the work. Spotify has claimed<\/a> it\u2019s paid \u201ctens of millions\u201d of dollars to publishers since it first introduced<\/a> the 15 hours of free listening for paying subscribers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n