Discworld audiobooks 3, 8 and 9 not included in Premium?

[Gwyndael]

It's been great to see the recent Penguin recordings of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett make its way to Spotify, and have the series included in the Premium subscriber audiobook allowance.

However, three of the books are not included for Premium subscribers:

• Equal Rites ( Book 3 )
• Guards Guards! ( Book 8 )
• Eric ( Book 9 )

I tried asking a Spotify rep via chat for information about this, but they were unable to tell me.

1. Is there a reason why these three have been excluded?
2. Are there plans to include them soon/in the future?

It's very odd and rather frustrating to essentially get stuck with a paywall after the second book if you want to listen to the whole series in order so that you get all the references and characters.

Is anyone from Spotify able to shed some light on this?

[AlejaR]

Hey @Gwyndael,

Thanks for posting in the Community and welcome.

The titles available in our audiobooks subscriber catalog may vary from time-to-time at Spotify’s or a third party rightsholder’s discretion. As a result, the titles in our audiobooks subscriber catalog may not be the same as those available for purchase on Spotify. Since this availability is influenced by various factors, the best place to stay in the loop is the For the Record blog.

Remember you can find all free audiobooks we offer by going to Search > Browse all > Audiobooks, and scroll down to find the free audiobooks section. Keep in mind that some titles within this section are in rotation. This means they're listed as free for a limited time, and may eventually have an updated price on the app after a few weeks.

Hope this clears things up. We're always a post away.

[Gwyndael]

Thanks for the reply 🙂

I appreciate the explanation, but I'm still confused as to why "Spotify’s or a third party rightsholder’s discretion" would mean licencing the entire series except those three seemingly random titles.

Looking at the specific subseries there seems to be a little sense to be found. "Equal Rites" is the first book in "The Witches" subseries; "Guards Guards!" is the first book in "The City Watch" subseries; but "Eric" is the fourth book in "The Wizards" subseries.

To offer some feedback, not including those books, especially the ones that act as the first in a subseries, means there is no point in listening to any of the other books in those subseries - unless of course you purchase the missing title(s). As such it seems like a waste to license the other 18 titles in those subseries by putting a paywall at the entry point of two subseries, and the midpoint of another.

Excluding two entry points into two subseries seems particularly odd as I'd imagine you'd typically want to offer a "free" entry into a series to see if the listener enjoys it and/or gets hooked at no cost/risk to them, and then potentially charge for later titles when they are invested.

This situation just makes very little sense to me both as a fan of Spotify and Discworld, and from a business perspective.

For any other subscribers who come across this thread, the subseries available to listen to in their entirety via the current subscriber catalog are:

1. The Death subseries - Books 4, 11, 16, 20, and 26
2. The Tiffany Aching subseries - Books 30, 32, 35, 38, and 41
3. The Moist von Lipwig subseries - Books 33, 36, and 40
4. And the standalone titles - Books 7, 10, 13, 25, 28, and 31

The "Wizards" subseries (books 1, 2, 5, 9, 17, 22, and 37); the "Witches" subseries (books 3, 6, 12, 14, 18, and 23); and the "City Watch" subseries (books 8, 15, 19, 21, 24, 29, 34, and 39) currently cannot be listened to in their entirety without additional purchases (books 3, 8, and 9).