Brief
Indie romance makes the 2026 Speakies shortlist
Sasha Cottman’s A Wild English Rose, released through Spotify Audiobooks, is up for Best Audiobook: Romance. Winners are due 23 November in London.
Why it matters. A self-published Spotify audiobook is sitting on a UK trade shortlist next to Bonnier, Audible, and Pan Macmillan.
The 2026 British Audio Awards — the Speakies — have a shortlist, ahead of a ceremony on Monday 23 November at the Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, hosted by Sally Phillips. Radio Times lists Sasha Cottman’s A Wild English Rose, narrated by Billie Fulford-Brown and Christopher Tester and credited to Spotify Audiobooks, in Best Audiobook: Romance, alongside titles from Bonnier, Audible, and Pan Macmillan. ALLi’s Dan Holloway picked out the indie credit on 22 September.
Holloway also notes that Audible is absent from the category sponsors, while Spotify supports the nonfiction memoir category. A shortlist is not a new upload button. If you produce audio, the useful fact is that a Spotify Audiobooks edition made a UK trade shortlist. It does not change ACX terms, and it does not mean every Spotify file is now eligible.