Amazon Is Testing a $10-Per-Month Ebook Service

Nate the greatest (2261802) writes "Details are still scarce but it looks like Amazon is going to be launching a competitor to Scribd and Oyster. Earlier today new pages leaked on the Amazon website which mentioned Kindle Unlimited, a new subscription ebook service. The pages were quickly removed, but not before we got some screenshots. If the screenshots are to be believed Kindle Unlimited is going to offer a catalog of over 600,000 titles for $9.99 a month. The news hasn't been confirmed by Amazon but those pages were seen by a number of authors and bloggers, including indie authors who confirmed that the new service is mentioned in their sales reports."

Comments

Subscription Everything

[cowtamer]

So for better or worse, everything is going to turn into a subscription service. You'll subscribe to read books, listen to music, stream movies, etc. Soon, we'll have grocery store subscriptions, subscriptions to hospitals (I think they're called HMOs), etc. I can imagine a furniture delivery & maintenance subscription too. At the end of the month, we'll probably see about $50 out of our paycheck -- which we won't even need to buy coffee, since we'll all have Starbucks subscriptions!!!

This will be great until, God forbid, the plug is pulled for some reason (unemployment, desire to take a couple of months off, etc.), at which point nobody will own anything...

Re:Subscription Everything

[gstoddart]

at which point nobody will own anything...

Why of course, that's the ultimate goal.

Why sell you something when we can endlessly rent it to you?

I will hold out from this model for as long as possible, because I don't give a shit about the profitability of these companies and their rent-seeking behavior.

Re:Subscription Everything

[CastrTroy]

I think it's actually quite a good way to get your music/movies/tv shows/books. I think it make the least sense for music because music tends to have a lot of replay value. People will listen to the same song or album over and over again. But for books, movies, and fiction books, you might use them once, twice, maybe even 20 times, but most people are constantly watching/reading new stuff. There's very little point to having a collection of movies you've already seen, or a house full of books you've already read. If they can get the price right, then they stand to make more money, and the person consuming the content will have access to a much larger library then they could every hope to purchase on their own. They are also more likely to branch out and look at other genres they hadn't considered before because they don't have to spend extra money to do so. And for media, it doesn't really matter much if you stop paying the subscription because you lost your job. You just can't watch any movies until you get a job again. Which many people are probably OK with. If it means I could have access to all of (or a large subset of) the media produced, I'm much happier spending $10 a month to have access to everything than spending $10 a month to have only 1 new item every month.

High useage

[gurps_npc]

I am a heavy reader and this would save me money.

But it would also mean I would have to give up paper and switch entirely to my e-reader, which I currently use for about 1/2 to 1/3 my purchasers. There are a lot of advantages still for paper books- charts, graphs and pictures for example do not show up well on ereaders. Nor do I worry about taking a paperback anyplace. I can take them on a camping/rafting trip.

It would also mean I would end up being locked into Amazon, not a good thing. I don't trust them as much as I trust Barnes and Nobles, as they have done vile things before (Hatchet, pulling back books people purchased)

I am a mamber of a free

[geekoid]

eBook service called: The Library.
You should see if your library has an eBook lending service.

Seriously, if you don't want to own it, why wouldn't you use a library?
This also goes for movies and games.
Your library doesn't do this or have enough titles? get involved.

yeah it is a good thing for me (as an author)

[netsavior]

My DRM-free, Amazon hosted and sold ebooks already net me more revenue via "Kindle Lending Library" (where customers may pick one "free" book per month if they are prime and kindle customers) than they do via sales.

The way the lending library works is they fund it every month, then they divide it up based on how often your book was checked out. I assume the ebook service would be similar, but better funded.

Re:Make it $4.99 and epub, not mobi

[netsavior]

DRM is a publisher choice. It is a checkbox in the Amazon "publish my book" interface. All of my books sold through amazon are DRM free. If you want to know how to tell (since it is non-obvious)... under "product details" there is an item called "Simultaneous Device Usage" if that says "unlimited" it is DRM free.

Re:So... how is this any better than a library?

[radarskiy]

It's better because this is capitalism and libraries are damned dirty communism.

Re:Make it $4.99 and epub, not mobi

[CRCulver]

Question â" how would a lending library work without DRM? Subscribe for one month, download a thousand books, cancel, and keep the books?

That's pretty much how it already is with ebook libraries that use Amazon or Adobe's DRM solution. From discussions on pirate ebook communities, I've seen that it's already common for pirates to buy a temporary subscription to a service, download everything through some clever scripting, break the DRM, upload to a pirate site, and let their temporary subscription lapse. Considering how trivial it is to break the DRM on these books, it really is only the honour system keeping people paying.