BTTR is independent. We may earn a commission if you buy through our links.
Why trust us? | How we test
I recently finished reading Brandon Sanderson's Wax and Wayne series. When I shut down my Kobo Clara Colour, I had no idea what I wanted to read next. Should I dive into another Sanderson series? Or something different?
If I listened to the books on Spotify's audiobooks service today, this new update would help decide for me. As part of a range of updates, the company has improved its discoverability of audiobooks and podcasts.
The first new feature is Prompted Playlist for audiobooks, which lets you type a description of what you're after and get a tailored list back. Spotify already rolled this feature out for music and podcasts, so audiobooks was the next natural step.
It lets you use natural language to get book recommendations. YOu can be as vague as "what books are popular", or as detailed as having a personalised audiobook calendar with books picked to match the month.
You can set these playlists to refresh daily or weekly, so there's always something new sitting there.
The second big update is called Just Ask Spotify. It's a conversational mode where you type or talk to Spotify to get recommendations or ask questions about what you're currently listening to.
Spotify says it understands follow-up questions, so a session can drift from music to podcasts to audiobooks without you starting over. It's currently limited to English speakers aged 18 and over in the US, Ireland and Sweden, so Aussies will need to wait for a wider rollout.
The third update is arguably the most useful one for series readers. Spotify will now automatically recommend the next book in a series as soon as you finish one. It will also mark multi-part sagas so they're easy to spot, and add dedicated series pages that lay out the correct reading order.
Author profile pages will also list every series they've written, which should save some frantic googling over whether book four comes before or after that novella (which is pretty much exactly what happened to me reading Sanderson's Wax & Wayne collection).
James Jacoby, Senior Director of Engineering and Insights for Audiobooks at Spotify, said the changes are about cutting the gap between listeners and the stories they'll love.
"Books are one of the most powerful ways people spend time on Spotify, and our focus is making it easier than ever to discover great stories and stay immersed in them," Jacoby said. "With these new features, we're reducing the friction between listeners and the books they'll love, helping people spend less time searching and more time inside the story."
Pricing and availability
Prompted Playlist for audiobooks and the next-in-series features are both rolling out to eligible Premium subscribers in Australia now, alongside the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, New Zealand and Sweden, at no extra cost beyond an existing Premium subscription.
Just Ask Spotify is not yet available locally, unfortunately, currently limited to Premium subscribers aged 18 and over in the US, Ireland and Sweden.
Latest ebook & audiobook deals
