Bengaluru, February 5, 2026, 21:02 IST
- Spotify will let users in the United States and Britain buy physical books through its app via Bookshop.org later this spring
- The company is also introducing “Page Match,” which links print or e-books to the matching spot in an audiobook
- Spotify is pushing further into books as it tries to broaden beyond music and keep up with larger tech rivals
Spotify will let users buy physical books through its app via Bookshop.org later this spring in the United States and Britain, the company said on Thursday. Spotify is also introducing Page Match, a feature that links a printed (or e-book) page to the matching moment in an audiobook. Owen Smith, Spotify’s global head of audiobooks, said “the future of reading or listening needs to be flexible,” and Bookshop.org CEO Andy Hunter said “Spotify is financially supporting indie booksellers with each purchase.” (Spotify)
The move is another attempt to turn discovery inside Spotify into something closer to a storefront, not just a place to press play. It also gives Spotify a way to talk about books without sounding like it is trying to out-Amazon Amazon.
Spotify said its Audiobooks in Premium service has expanded to 22 markets and its English-language catalogue has grown to more than 500,000 titles, with new listeners up 36% and listening hours up 37%. Bookshop.org will handle pricing, inventory and fulfillment — the shipping and delivery — and Spotify said Page Match will be fully rolled out to all audiobook users by Feb. 23. Spotify has also raised its monthly premium subscription price by $1 to $12.99 in the United States, Estonia and Latvia, and it framed the latest features as part of a broader effort to compete with tech giants including Apple and Amazon. (Reuters)
In the app, Spotify plans to add a button on audiobook pages prompting users to “get a copy for your bookshelf.” The purchase flow sends users out of Spotify to complete checkout on Bookshop.org, The Verge reported. (The Verge)
Page Match is meant to cut the annoying pause between formats. Scan a page and the app jumps to the same spot in the audiobook; scan again later to get back to the text.
Spotify is pitching the Bookshop tie-up as a way to funnel orders to independent bookstores. It is a gentler message than “we are selling you things now,” but the point is still the point.
But print is not a growth market in the way streaming once was, and buying a physical book is a slower decision than sampling a chapter. The extra step of leaving the app to pay could also blunt impulse buys, especially if the title is more “maybe” than “must.”
For Bookshop, the partnership is a chance to put indie stores in front of Spotify’s user base without trying to build a discovery engine from scratch. For Spotify, the question is whether physical books become a meaningful add-on, or just another feature competing for attention inside a very crowded app.
