Spiracle is a new audiobook platform that has just launched in the United Kingdom. Spiracle features titles from independent presses and a variety of publishers, but its focus is on independent presses and on offering a range of literary fiction and nonfiction, including books in translation. The company produces a number of audiobooks itself in partnership with smaller publishers. They operate as a subscription model where you can buy a monthly plan for £12.99 or pay a higher annual fee. If you don’t want to subscribe, no worries, it is possible to buy everything on an individual basis.
Director Kate Bland said that the aim was not to offer “every single book that’s ever been made into an audio, but we are selecting what we hope is a really wonderful array of international books and translations”. Bland said the company operated on the “basis that there are book-lovers who want to go and buy their audiobooks and be part of a literary atmosphere that just is about the pleasure and the life and world that you can have within books”.
What I like about the new site is the writeups that the editorial staff on each audiobook. It is not simply copy and pasted from the publisher, but well-written and perfectly sums up the title. There is also plenty of free articles, podcasts and interviews with authors. All of the narrators are British and from the samples I listened to, are actually pretty good. In a Walmart world, Spiracle is a local shop full of treasures.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
