Initially reported by Sölve Dahlgren at Boktugg (a Swedish publication), Penguin Random House has removed more than a thousand English- and Spanish-language audiobooks from Storytel, the largest digital subscription service in Europe. PRH has also removed those books from some smaller services. PRH told Boktugg, “At this point in time, Penguin Random House has decided that we will not participate in subscription models with unlimited access. Our decision was made jointly by the company’s international management team to protect a variety of content on the market and the actual and perceived long-term value of our authors’ intellectual property rights.”
PRH’s audiobooks can no longer be found in US-based Scribd, another unlimited subscription service. A licensing deal between the two companies for 9,000 audiobooks, announced in 2015, has clearly expired. Note that PRH audiobook titles remain available from subscription services that have limitations on listening, such as Audible, Libro.fm, and Audiobooks.com, as well as libraries.
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.
