Short-Changed? Spotify's Push Into Audiobooks Sparks Money-Woe Concerns Among Authors
Spotify Technology SA's big leap into audiobooks is facing a backlash from US authors who fear they'll be short-changed by the streaming giant. Spotify began offering complimentary audiobooks to millions of customers in October as part of their monthly subscriptions. All of the so-called Big Five publishers signed on, with Penguin Random House LLC saying it was “excited” to place titles on the service.
But not everyone in the book industry is thrilled, including Bradley Tusk, a New York-based venture capitalist, author and bookstore owner whose political advocacy firm Tusk Strategies is rallying authors who worry that the shift to streaming will make it even more difficult to earn a living.
“I've seen this movie enough times,” Tusk said in an interview. “If, at the beginning of the cycle, we can say and do something about it, we can solve it before it becomes an intractable problem. That's what we're trying to do.”
(Tusk also ran the 2009 mayoral campaign of Michael Bloomberg, the owner of Bloomberg LP.)
“Although we can't get into the current deal specifics, our book publishing partners each negotiate licenses with Spotify and tell us our payout model is consistently competitive with other audiobook offerings,” a Spotify spokesperson said in a statement. “Publishers have expressed that they are pleased with the results they are seeing since the introduction of audiobooks on Spotify, providing incremental value for their authors.”
A new group organized by Tusk, the Coalition of Concerned Creators, is demanding more transparency from Spotify, particularly about how authors will be paid. To kick off the campaign, author Kim Scott published an opinion column in the New York Times on Dec. 13 titled Remember What Spotify Did to
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