Today, Spotify announced a new partnership with Bookshop.org, an online store that bills itself as giving “independent bookstores tools to compete online.” Later this spring, listening to an audiobook on the app will give you the option to buy the book you’re listening to. It sounds similar to how listening to music on the app right now will prompt you toward an artist’s merch or concert tickets. “We are excited to see the impact Spotify’s scale will have for local bookstores,” founder and CEO of Bookshop.org Andy Hunter. “By meeting readers where they are and linking to Bookshop.org, Spotify is financially supporting indie booksellers with each purchase.”
The streaming service also unveiled a “Page Match” feature for audiobook listeners, which is scheduled to roll out later this month in the U.S. The feature is billed as something that will make it easier to switch between reading and listening to books, where users can scan the page of the book they’re on and have their audiobook pick up right at that spot. In the press release, author Harlan Coben called it the “most exciting development in reading technology I’ve heard about in years.” It does sound fairly cool, but now we’re wondering what the last development in reading technology was to get Harlan Coben really excited.
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