Scandinavian audiobook subscription service Storytel increased its number of subscribers strongly over the past year to 1,625,000 in the second quarter of 2021 from 1,154,800 in the first quarter of 2020, representing a rise of 40%.
The firm claims to be Northern Europe’s leading audiobook and ebook streaming service and offers unlimited listening and reading. Independent authors can place their books in Storytel through distributors such as PublishDrive which offers a 50% royalty for the channel.
A record number of 130,000 listeners voted in the recent Storytel Awards, the Nordic region’s biggest audiobook award, and for the first time in the history of the prize an author won an award in two countries. Swedish crime author Emelie Schepp (pictured above) received two awards — one in Sweden and one in Iceland for best crime novel in both countries, but with different books — Nine Lives in Sweden, and Top Priority (Evil) in Iceland. Both audiobooks are part of a series featuring prosecutor Jana Berzelius.
Emelie Schepp worked as a project manager in the advertising industry before self-publishing her debut book Marked For Life in 2013 and has since sold over two million books and been published worldwide.
In the autumn, Storytel Awards will also be held in the Netherlands, and the aim is for the awards to be launched in more countries as the audiobook phenomenon grows.
‘It feels great to be able to shine a spotlight on the creative minds behind some of the strong stories that influence, change, and entertain us every day,’ says Jonas Tellander, founder and CEO of Storytel. ‘This is a way for Storytel to celebrate them, and I am incredibly pleased that so many readers throughout the Nordic region have shared who their favourites are by actually going in and actively vote for them.’
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