Pratilipi to adapt its bestseller titles as audio books, shows for Amazon's Audible

Amazon's audio streaming platform Audible on March 16 announced an agreement with digital storytelling platform Pratilipi to expand its library of audiobooks on the platform.

Under this deal, Pratilipi will adapt its literary bestsellers into audiobooks and audio shows that will be exclusively available on Audible for 18 months. The company will be producing and developing over 300 hours of content that will span a variety of genres such as romance, horror, thriller and mystery.

This includes popular titles such as Siyah, Bepanah Ishq, Kothewaali, which the firm said have collectively been read by over a million people. It also includes four marquee shows featuring some of India’s "celebrated personalities", Audible said in a statement.

“Pratilipi is a force to reckon with when it comes to storytelling and their literary masterpieces will be perfect additions to the Audible library.” said Shailesh Sawlani, VP and Country GM, Audible India.

Pratilipi CEO Ranjeet Pratap Singh said "Through this deal with Audible, we want to reiterate our focus on establishing Pratilipi as the home to some of the best stories. We have witnessed the enormous potential of our homegrown authors to create international best sellers that can reach a wider audience through multiple formats"

Pratilipi, which counts South Korean gaming giant Krafton and Omidyar Network India among its investors, claims to currently have around 25 million monthly active users and 9 lakh writers on its platform.

In December 2022, the Bengaluru-based startup had struck a distribution partnership with Walmart-owned e-commerce marketplace Flipkart. Through this partnership, Flipkart stated it will offer fiction and nonfiction e-books across multiple genres like romance, horror, self-help, and motivation among others across 12 Indian languages on its platform.

Meanwhile, Audible India claims to offer more than 200,000 audiobooks, podcasts, and original audio titles to its members. The service is currently available on a monthly fee of Rs 199.

In February 2023, the service announced a collaboration with Marvel for the Hindi adaption of the podcast series Wastelanders for its members. The series will feature many leading Hindi actors including Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor Khan, and Jaideep Ahlawat in the roles of iconic Marvel Super Heroes in February 2023. The 10-episode scripted series will debut in June 2023 and will roll out across 2023 and 2024.