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And they said reading was dying.

It's certainly alive and well at Spotify, whose listeners are so hungry for new audiobooks that the company has devised a bold, democratic way of getting them. According to a recent report, Spotify Audiobooks is now accepting short-form stories from the public, to be evaluated by the company and, if accepted, turned into Spotify-produced audiobooks to stream on the platform.

The story comes to us via Publishers Weekly, who wrote on the announcement March 18. Cited in the story is Spotify audiobooks producer Leah Kleynhans, who says that "We know Spotify users will love exploring these intense, bite-sized listens, and expanding our audiobooks catalog in this way gives fans even more choice in the content they love to consume on our platform."

So what exactly is Spotify looking for? Well, if you're an author who's interested in writing the next Infinite Jest, you may be out of luck. The audio streamer is particularly searching for stories in the genres of romance, mystery/thriller, and sci-fi/fantasy, says PW, and is limiting their search to stories in the 10,000 - 20,00 word range. Spotify is keeping their options open, however, for authors who have already recorded stories that fit these parameters, encouraging creators to upload their files via a program called Findaway Voices.

For authors who have not already turned their works into audio novelettes, however, Spotify promises to manage every aspect of the production of accepted pitches, from paying an advance to distributing the finished product. As PW notes, this system is similar to Spotify competitor Audible's Audiobook Creation Exchange program, which helps match audiobook narrators to authors looking to produce their own audiobooks.

What Spotify doesn't mention in their announcement is exactly how much money independent authors can expect to see from their produced stories. Not to dash anyone's dreams, but it's something that hopeful entry-level authors should perhaps be mindful of, considering Spotify's history of paying very little to the music creators that stream on their platform.

That being said, this could very well be a way for authors without a massive following to break into the rapidly expanding field of audiobooks, and even beyond that, is a rebuke to the notion that books are going away. These might be shorter, certainly, and from a phone rather than your local library - but people still crave good fiction, even in today's oversaturated world.

We take that as a win.

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