Audible has done a big deal with Disney Publishing to pick up 60 exclusive licensed titles and launch three new original stories as part of a strategy to grow its kids & family business. 

The original audiobooks launching today are Star Wars: Padawan’s Pride (eight to 12), Disney Frozen: Olaf’s Quest (pictured, six to eight) and Disney Pixar Cars: The Legend of the Crystal Hubcap (three to five).  

Audible has also acquired the rights to 60 existing audiobooks that will now be available exclusively on its platform, including Finding Dory, Monsters. Inc, Mulan and Toy Story. 

And the Amazon-owned company is on the hunt for even more content commissions and acquisitions, says Diana Dapito, head of consumer content for North America. “We’re always committed to new content,” she says. “We’re interested in finding new and immersive ways to get kids listening.” As of this past May, Audible had tens of millions of subscribers in 180 countries, listening in 47 languages, and it’s looking to boost that number by engaging kids and proving its value to families.

It’s also continuing to roll out its brand-new Kids Profiles, a child-friendly version of the app that lets parents share titles with their offspring. In this mode, children can only see and listen to audiobooks their parents have selected as appropriate for them. Audible launched this feature in the US at the beginning of September, and is in the process of taking it global.

Dapito just hit 20 years with the company, and she recalls that when she started, she had to explain to everyone what a podcast was. But in recent years, the pandemic accelerated the streamer’s growth as families stuck at home listened to podcasts a lot more often. And the screen-free entertainment habit really stuck, even after lockdowns were lifted.  

For companies looking to work with Audible, Heather Alexander heads up children’s programming as executive editor of Audible Originals. And producers need to know that the platform is especially interested in audio-first projects that put a lot of thought into creating high-quality listening experiences. Middle-grade fantasy series The Mystwick School of Musicraft by Jessica Khoury is a good example, Dapito says, because it’s got high-caliber storytelling and clear character development, and it embraces the use of sound to tell the story—the New Jersey Youth Symphony Orchestra performs original musical pieces for it. 

Perennially big draws for younger listeners are silly voices and funny sound effects, Dapito adds. Michael Buckley’s Audible Original The Weirdies, which skews more to upper-elementary-aged kids, epitomizes this type of humor and outlandish narrative style. It’s about a strange set of triplets who suddenly have to learn how to take care of themselves after a lifetime of having everything handled for them by their huge household staff.  

Dapito also encourages producers to check out Audible’s top-100 list of audiobooks for kids, which its editorial team maintains. These high-performers—which include platform exclusives such as The Baby-Sitters Club (a personal favorite of Dapito’s) and the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series—offer good clues about what is resonating with this audience. 

Audible has more than 900,000 titles, and Sesame Workshop’s The Sesame Street Podcast with Foley and Friends (three seasons), Hasbro’s Peppa Pig’s Play-A-Long Podcast and Nickelodeon’s Are You Afraid of the Dark? The Official Podcast are among some of the newest ones for kids.

Coming up for 2025 are new versions of the Harry Potter books that Audible is co-producing with Pottermore Publishing. They’ll feature much larger casts than the single-reader originals, which Audible added in 2015 and which have since racked up 1.4 billion hours of engagement worldwide.