Kendra Winchester is a Contributing Editor for Book Riot where she writes about audiobooks and disability literature. She is also the Founder of Read Appalachia, which celebrates Appalachian literature and writing. Previously, Kendra co-founded and served as Executive Director for Reading Women, a podcast that gained an international following over its six-season run. In her off hours, you can find her writing on her Substack, Winchester Ave, and posting photos of her Corgis on Instagram and Twitter @kdwinchester.
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On Spotify wrapped day, my social media feeds filled with users sharing their top listens of the year. They can share all sorts of stats about top artists, songs, and genres. But Spotify isn’t just for music anymore. You can also listen to podcasts and even audiobooks.
A little over a year ago, Spotify launched their audiobooks feature for Premium. Subscribers can listen to 15 hours of audio a month from a selection of over 150,000 audiobook titles. I have to admit, I love being able to pop over to my Spotify app and listen to just a few hours at a time without having to worry about purchases or credits. The interface is easy to use and find what title I’m looking for on any given day.
This year, they launched their new Audiobooks Wrapped editorial hub, a place where users can see the top audiobooks listened to in 2024. There, listeners can find the top audiobooks of the year and lists of editorial picks. While the majority of the titles are fiction, let’s have a look at their top 10 nonfiction audiobooks of the year:
- I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy, Performed by the Author
- The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene, Performed by Richard Poe
- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, Performed by Derek Perkins
- Down the Drain by Julia Fox, Performed by the Author
- Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson, Performed by Jeremy Bobb and the Author
- Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, Performed by the Author
- Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry, Performed by the Author
- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson, Performed by Roger Wayne
- The Woman in Me by Britney Spears, Performed by Michelle Williams
- The Mountain is You by Brianna Wiest, Performed by Stacey Glemboski
Right out of the gate, we can see that the majority of these titles are incredibly popular backlist books that people keep picking up in print, so it makes sense that would extend to audio as well. But the list isn’t very diverse across the board, to put it mildly. In regards to the type of books represented, it’s a lot of self-help and celebrity memoir. I would have loved to have seen more science and history represented on the list.
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If you scroll through their lists curated by their editorial team, you can find more diverse titles, especially in the fiction categories. In nonfiction, there’s more diversity in authors represented, but we still have a lot of celebrity memoirs and self-help. I appreciated Spotify’s efforts to broaden their list of bestsellers with additional titles, but, in the future, I would love to see more nonfiction categories curated by their editorial team. That kind of work helps broaden listenership to diverse books.
In comparison, big players in the audiobook space, like Audible and—especially—Libro.fm, have dozens of editorial lists to help guide listeners to more diverse titles. If they want to compete, I suspect Spotify will need to do the same, not just at the end of the year but all year long. Spotify is still new to the audiobook game. Perhaps it’s something we’ll see in the coming years as the audiobooks wrapped feature and editorial hub expands and grows.
