The YouTube logo. Image: YouTube / Wikimedia Commons (public domain).
YouTube conquered video. Now it wants your bookshelf. The Google-owned streaming giant has held discussions with publishers in recent months about building an audiobook feature, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday — a move that would put YouTube head-to-head with Spotify and Amazon's Audible.
The offering could be ready as soon as next year, according to people familiar with the talks. YouTube has weighed bundling audiobooks into its YouTube Premium subscription — the ad-free tier that starts at $15.99 a month and already includes music and videos. How the books would be displayed in the app, and whether listeners would be charged for individual titles, remains undecided. YouTube declined to comment on the report.
The timing is no accident. Audiobooks are one of the strongest growth stories in publishing: revenue from digital audiobook sales topped $1 billion in 2025, according to the Association of American Publishers — nearly four times the $265 million the format generated back in 2016. The streaming giants have taken notice. Just last week, Spotify began rolling out audiobooks to more than 180 markets, vastly expanding a catalog that already spans over 350,000 titles in more than 120 languages.
For publishers, a YouTube entry looks like both an opportunity and a fix. Industry executives told the Journal they see a chance to tap into YouTube's massive audience — the largest of any streaming platform — and, just as importantly, to build a legitimate revenue stream as an alternative to the glut of unauthorized audio versions of their books that already circulate on the site.
But the category is crowded, and the product questions are real. Audible has owned the space for years with its credit-based model, while Spotify bundles monthly listening hours into its Premium plans. YouTube would have to decide whether audiobooks become a Premium perk, a separate purchase, or something else entirely — and figure out how to present hours-long audio inside an app built for watching video.
Nothing has been announced, and the talks could still fall apart. But with Spotify going global and publishers hungry for new revenue, the battle for listeners' ears is heating up — and YouTube, late to the game, holds one card its rivals don't: the world's biggest video audience, already in its pocket.