On Spotify you mainly listen to music and podcasts. Abroad it is also possible to listen to audiobooks, but unfortunately this feature is not (yet) available in the Netherlands. Nevertheless, there is a way to still listen to content.
In the Netherlands, for audiobooks you mainly rely on Storytel, Nextory and Kobo Plus. A good app, but it’s a waste if you have to spend extra money on it, when it could probably be done for free.
In fact, there is an option to listen to audiobooks via Spotify. OK, the way is a bit cumbersome, but it works.
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Audiobooks on Spotify
In some countries, Spotify’s Premium subscription gives you access to 15 hours of audiobooks. This is a hefty catalog, as you have a choice of 200,000 titles. Yet this is not the case in the Netherlands, and that probably all has to do with rights.
Still, you can indeed find Dutch audiobooks on Spotify. You just have to search extra carefully. There are several titles that are just on the platform.
This includes titles that are definitely worth listening to. Hugo Borst, for example, has his own account on the streaming service. Here you listen to such impressive audiobooks as Ma, Ach, moedertje and De Coolsingel bleef leeg.
Dutch and foreign writers
But Hugo Borst is certainly not the only Dutch writer who has free audiobooks on Spotify. For example, you can also find The Holy Antonio by Arnon Grunberg on the streaming service.
This is how to listen to something other than music. (Image: Jackson Simmer / Unsplash)
Spotify is also a great place to go for Heleen van Royen. The writer has quite a few titles on the platform.
In fact, on Spotify there is a special playlist of lismio with all kinds of Dutch titles. There are even translated ones among them. So you can also listen to titles by Stephen King, Jane Fallon and Amy McClouch.
Perhaps not the easiest option
Still, you have to be careful when you start listening to an audiobook on Spotify. This is because you just do this in the same environment as where you listen to music. So it is not as well set up as Storytel, for example. Each chapter is a song so you will have to remember which one you are at and not accidentally put that list on shuffle.
Until audiobooks are added to Spotify Premium in the Netherlands, you will have to do it through this less convenient route. If you still want to devour audiobooks, apps like Storytel and Nextory might be better choices for you anyway.
