This is the AI company I suggested everyone watch this year. They’ve just launched ElevenReader Publishing, where authors can create and sell AI-narrated audiobooks for free through ElevenLabs’ app. (Payment for that work via ElevenLabs isn’t much: $1.10 per listener.) You’ll need a paid ElevenLabs account to export and distribute those audiobook files widely to retailers. I started paying for my own account at ElevenLabs last fall, and the technology is impressive; it’s used by all kinds of media companies, including prestigious outlets, like the New Yorker.
- But wait, there’s more: In yet another sign of ElevenLabs’ dominance in the AI audio market, Spotify has announced it is teaming up with the company to accept AI-narrated audiobooks. Authors who use ElevenLabs to narrate their audiobooks can now distribute to Spotify and select other retailers via Findaway Voices (owned by Spotify) to distribute widely. Any audiobooks created with AI will be clearly marked us such. Learn more.
- Further context: Audible has featured AI-narrated audiobooks for a while now, and in Sept. 2024, ACX/Audible rolled out a limited AI narration program that remains in beta. Other distributors and retailers, including Ingram (via DeepZen), Apple, Google, and Draft2Digital (in partnership with Apple), have been offering AI narration features for a while.
- Related: Publishers Lunch offered a recent deep dive into how Spotify pays for audiobooks (sub required). No one will disclose exact terms—and every publisher has a bespoke deal—but the overall gist: The Big Five publishers negotiated deals that pay them the equivalent of an audiobook unit sale once listening surpasses a specific threshold. The Authors Guild noted in 2023 this threshold is around 10 to 20 percent. Smaller publishers are not likely getting such nice deals. My questions about Spotify still stand: (1) How many Spotify customers go beyond their 15 free credits and pay for additional credits? (2) Is outright credit purchasing or audiobook purchasing necessary for this to be sustainable for Spotify? (3) Whatever publishers have been getting paid by Spotify—and it is a near certainty the biggest publishers receive payout rates that are the same as an audiobook unit sale elsewhere—can and will those rates continue?
- What has not received enough attention: Spotify has found a way to pay less to rights holders, thanks to a 2022 ruling by the Copyright Royalty Board that allows services bundling different forms of content to pay lower rates. What’s being bundled by Spotify? Music and audiobooks. The National Music Publishers’ Association filed an FTC complaint over it.
I stand by my initial analysis of Spotify in early 2024: Spotify Earnings Aren’t Bad for Authors (Yet).
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
