14 ms·

Amazon leaks Kindle Unlimited

304 points by ecrotty 12y ago

JustinCEO 12y ago
"Enjoy unlimited access to over 600,000 titles and thousands of audiobooks" @Audiobooks, does this mean they're replacing Audible?
- JustinCEO 12y ago
  Answering my own question a bit, it appears to be "no" (at least short term) -- there's a new Kindle Books with Narration in Kindle Unlimited category with only a couple thousand titles http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=9630682011 http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=9630682011
Shivetya 12y ago
I would pay something similar just to browse selected sites all month long without encountering a hundred different pay walls. for a voracious reader like myself this might be a great money saver depending on what is excluded. However it is quite possible to have more than you read for free just by surfing Amazon for all the free ebooks
Jemaclus 12y ago
Awesome. This is a nail in the coffin for Oyster or whatever that other app was. You can't beat Amazon's selection or prices, and this just makes the Netflix comparison even better. Oof. Sucks for competition, good for my Kindle and my wallet.
- walterbell 12y ago
  Unclear what subset of all Kindle books would be included. http://gigaom.com/2014/07/16/amazon-is-testing-kindle-unlimited-an-ebook-subscription-service-for-9-99month/ http://gigaom.com/2014/07/16/amazon-is-testing-kindle-unlimi... --- No big-5 publisher appears to be participating yet, based on my preliminary glance through the test pages. Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins have both made their ebooks available to Scribd and Oyster, but I haven’t yet seen books from those publishers on the Kindle Unlimited page, though I’m not done poking through all 600,000+ titles yet. ---
  - dublinben 12y ago
    The publishers are really in the position to kill this. They obviously don't want to support an Amazon-based unlimited book rental service, and no users will join it if they can't read the books they want to.
    - cstross 12y ago
      It really depends ... How much do people read? Nobody's too sure, but it looks like an extremely long tail distribution -- not just a matter of 80% of the books being read by 20% of the readers, but of 80% being read by maybe 5-10% of the readers. The $9.99/mo price point will work fine for the major publishers if the readers end up on average reading $9.99 of retail-value ebooks per month, but not too much more, and if AMZN's accounting back-end pays them pro-rata for loans. It's like an all-you-can-eat restaurant buffet; some people will pig out, but most people don't fill themselves to the point of nausea, and it all averages out in the end. However, I suspect it's no coincidence that this is surfacing at the same time that AMZN are renegotiating their ebook pricing contracts with the big five (starting with the current dust-up with Hachette). It's another form of leverage: Amazon can offer it as a tasty extra -- in effect, a commercial library access channel -- for compliant publishers, but can also threaten to withhold access to the new channel if they won't play ball over discount structures.
      - dublinben 12y ago
        >How much do people read? Nobody's too sure We actually have a pretty good idea. According to Gallup/Pew research[0], the median American reads 8 books a year. Slightly less than a third read more than one book a month. I doubt any customer who reads less than one ebook (let alone a physical book) per month would find it worth signing up for this service. That leaves the service with mostly heavy consumers of books, which is going to really stretch that $10/mo price point. Since the major publishers already think that a single ebook is worth at least that, I can't see them joining a program that will almost certainly deliver less revenue. [0]http://libraries.pewinternet.org/2012/04/04/the-rise-of-e-reading/ http://libraries.pewinternet.org/2012/04/04/the-rise-of-e-re...
- vowelless 12y ago
  It was OysterBooks: https://www.oysterbooks.com/ https://www.oysterbooks.com/ It does suck -- in the spirit of competition, I hope they keep on going!
  - munificent 12y ago
    What sucks about it?
    - gknoy 12y ago
      I think they meant "It sucks for OysterBooks that Amazon is doing the same thing", rather than "OysterBooks sucks".
- eridius 12y ago
  Not true. Oyster knew Amazon was going to end up trying this eventually. It's the obvious move. But Oyster also knows that the publishers do not like working with Amazon, which puts Oyster in a much better position to get good deals and get the publisher support necessary to have good books available. So we'll see how well this works. If Amazon can't get the big 5 on board, but Oyster can, then I think they'll do just fine.
frio 12y ago
Interesting. I wonder what this implies for authors. Amazon might take a cut currently, but the lion's share ends up with the author -- a royalty based scheme significantly changes the playing field, and I worry that it could be for the worse (http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-25217353 http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-25217353). EDIT -- and what it implies for publishers.
- jonnathanson 12y ago
  It'll definitely be interesting to watch. The article you linked talks about the effects of Spotify on making a living as a musician. Spotify economics are, as you've pointed out, much tougher for authors than for songwriters. Books take a lot longer to create than songs. Also, people listen to the same songs hundreds (sometimes even thousands) of times before getting sick of them. People generally read books once. Maybe a few times, over the course of their entire lives, if they really love the book. You don't get the frequency effect that you do with music consumption. So a fractional royalty, multiplied by a lot of individual readers, each of whom reads the book once, is probably the best outcome for any given book in this case. If this model takes hold, the thing that may need to change is the book itself. The economics of subscription suggest a shift in incentives away from the years-long creation of 300+ page tomes, and toward serialization or shorter forms. It behooves me, as an author, to have 10 or 20 "books" (or serialized installments) floating around the system each year, casting a wider net, than to bet the farm on one book a year.
  - thisjepisje 12y ago
    > Also, people listen to the same songs hundreds (sometimes even thousands) of times before getting sick of them. But people also don't read as much books as they listen to songs, so naturally the royalty per unit consumed will be higher for books.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
  - davmre 12y ago
ChuckMcM 12y ago
So they must be testing various parts of the Amazon Prime value proposition as piecework services. Lets see 'Unlimited {video | kindle | music}' for 9.95 each or get all three for $24.95. Seems Kindle is a safer way to start since neither Spotify or Netflix is going to respond competitively to book reader services.
smackfu 12y ago
Once you get past the big name books where Amazon is probably subsidizing the costs, a lot of the content is Amazon-published. I wonder what that compensation looks like.
JimmaDaRustla 12y ago
Suddenly the disgruntled publishers makes sense.
dublinben 12y ago
Most of these books are available through your local library for free.
- davorb 12y ago
  That's true of most books, yet people still seem to buy them.
- hnha 12y ago
  Actually I doubt that, 50% are probably automatically generated rubbish that is (luckily) not available in a local library. But yeah, this is probably just "renting". I doubt you could download them all but I would love to try doing exactly that.
- dingaling 12y ago
  > Most of these books are available through your local library for free. All inter-library loans in my library board cost 1 UKP ( c. $1.40 ) which quickly mounts-up when there's very little on the shelf in the local branch. I could read 'Excel 2003 for Dummies' again, I suppose, but I'm a bit bored of it to be honest...
  - dublinben 12y ago
    In the US, many libraries have a system called Overdrive that offers ebooks (and audiobooks) for borrowing. It's essentially a free version of this service, but with better selection.
    - ctdonath 12y ago
      Hoopla as well.
- smackfu 12y ago
  Actually, I bet most of these books are published by Amazon and are Kindle exclusives. Then they manually add in a few hundred or thousand well-known books to make it look like a grand selection.
- 12y ago
ecrotty 12y ago
There is a lot of reaction on the source by indie authors, including Hugh Howey, on kboards : http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,189900.0.html http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,189900.0.html
gdilla 12y ago
This won't have the major publishing houses titles (beyond those who have agreed to work with Oyster). So no Penguin Random House, the market leader in print and audio. It also remains to be seen if the subscription model can work for books - they take longer to consume than movies or music. So you can imaging slower or busy readers being punished with a subscription unless they make it through 1.5 books per month which is where it makes sense to buy it. I don't think many people would like that over their head. Plus there's the library and used books, and just borrowing - all things we do way less of for movies and music.
- kryptiskt 12y ago
  One thing that immediately strikes me is that this would be very useful for nonfiction, if one wants to nibble a chapter here and a chapter there. For my own use I'm more worried that unlimited really is "unlimited". Not that it's going to matter for me, the chance that it will be available outside the US is nil.
- jack-r-abbit 12y ago
  On the other side of that, it kind of makes more sense (to me) to buy music and rent (subscribe to) books because music is usually listened to repeatedly while books are usually read once and then not again (or at least not for a long time after the first time).
  - dublinben 12y ago
    On the other hand, you will almost always want access to an enormous music library (few $ per month), but might not always need a new book. With used paperbacks only a few bucks each, you can collect (or cycle through) a lot of books for $120/year.
    - jack-r-abbit 12y ago
      True. But we're not talking about used paperbacks anymore more than we're talking about used CDs. Digital copies of books are not discounted once they're "used" so you aren't going to collect as many ebooks for $120/year. It really just depends on the usage patterns. My kids could probably put a $10/month book service out of business. I would probably be their best customer with like 1 book a quarter. :)
riffraff 12y ago
how was this leaked?
- PostOnce 12y ago
  "Leaked" now means "intentionally released to the media by the marketing department" How this came to be I don't know; leaks are bad. They're unintentional (by the company) and contain unfinished/unspun/out of context information that can possibly be detrimental to the company. Yet people keep using it to mean "press release"
will_work4tears 12y ago
I wonder about the average use specifics for kindle users. Obviously Amazon has insight into this and would set their pricing appropriately. Assuming the kind of books listed here are the kind on the daily deal (1.99): The average user would have to read only 4-5 books a month to break even (say 9 books every two months counting taxes). I doubt most users would read that consistently. Maybe the first month, but usage would likely drop, and the deal works out better in Amazon's favor until they quit. Which for many users could be until their credit card expires. I probably only read 6 books a month at the most these days, and some months I probably drop down as low as 1 book every month several times a year. I'd probably enroll in this service so even if they have 9.99 normal cost ebooks, I think overall it'd work so Amazon doesn't lose much more than they would with their current structure.
- mavrc 12y ago
  Things look a lot rosier for audiobook listeners, though, because audiobooks are significantly more expensive than textbooks. Even the cheapest Audible subscription is $15. I'm really looking forward to seeing what they mean by "thousands of audiobooks;" if they're incorporating the Audible library, then this is an easy decision.
  - ericdykstra 12y ago
    I'm an Audible subscriber (all of my book-reading comes via audiobook), and I would obviously jump over immediately if the entire library was available. Audible has many more than "thousands" of books, though, so I think it will be a gradual process.
    - Splendor 12y ago
      I'm very confused by all of this since Amazon owns Audible.
higherpurpose 12y ago
Awesome. I've been hoping Amazon would do this, since Google or any of their competitors were too shortsighted to do this for books, even though it was their only chance to disrupt Amazon and actually take some market share in ebooks from them. But once again, Amazon is the one innovating and disrupting itself, even as an almost monopoly. This should be great for people who want to read a lot of books, and could even encourage people who only read say 1 book per year, to read a lot more.
thrush 12y ago
Will this compete with Safari Books Online (https://www.safaribooksonline.com/ https://www.safaribooksonline.com/)?
- paultannenbaum 12y ago
  Looks like it. I see Scribd as the company most affected by this.
- troymc 12y ago
  I think Safari Books Online is mostly tech books. Yes, I know it has other stuff, but Harry Potter? Lord of the Rings? No.
cliveowen 12y ago
A few weeks ago Jon Evans of TechCrunch said this: "Despite my techie contempt for their business practices, I really do want traditional publishers to survive, because their employees — unlike, I suspect, Amazon’s — tend to genuinely love books in the same way that I do, and because good editors are worth their weight in gold. But it’s hard to see how they can thrive fighting like this. In the long run their only real hope is to disrupt the Kindle ecosystem with a paid subscription model — a “Beats for books,” if you will. I’m not sure how successful that will be. Books are not like songs. But it’s hard to see where else their future lies. Never mind the current Amazon vs. Hachette skirmish; that’s just a sideshow. Book publishers essentially conceded their long war with Amazon before it ever began, without even knowing what they were doing." [1] Looks like he was spot on, and it looks like Amazon won the whole war. EDIT: It looks like he predicted this almost a year ago in another article: "With luck we’re entering a world in which readers have access to any and every book for a flat fee; authors get paid depending on how much they’re actually read; publishers remain a vital but decreasingly visible part of the process; physical books are still available via online print-on-demand and niche physical stores; and zillions of CC-licensed books are freely available to readers in the poor world who can’t yet afford books or subscription services. Call me Pollyanna, but it seems to me that that’s a win for absolutely everyone." [2] And I have to agree, this looks like a big win for everyone. [1] http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/14/the-only-tragedy-of-this-war-is-that-one-day-it-will-end/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/14/the-only-tragedy-of-this-wa... [2] http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/07/its-almost-time-to-throw-out-your-books/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/07/its-almost-time-to-throw-ou...
- programminggeek 12y ago
  It's not exactly a huge win for authors, but you never know. While the business of selling millions of individual copies of a books might go away, the opportunity to grow an audience and leverage that is a different thing. The authors who figure out how to leverage more than just selling a book are the ones who will do well. The ones who don't build an audience will likely fail at a higher rate than they did previously.
- walterbell 12y ago
  Do you see someone other than publishers providing risk capital for authors to live while writing?
scarmig 12y ago
It seems that you can search which books are going to be available through it, at last as of this moment http://www.amazon.com/s?url=node%3D9578129011&field-keywords=#{WHATEVER_YOURE_SEARCHING_FOR} http://www.amazon.com/s?url=node%3D9578129011&field-keywords... Selection seems extremely paltry, though.
paul_f 12y ago
This looks scary for authors, and maybe it should. Like digital music and movies, the marginal cost of an ebook is pretty much zero. If you are an author, you need to rethink how to make money from your work. It won't be from selling $10 books much longer.
- walterbell 12y ago
  The following analysis of self-publishing's future is from an author who had two successful books on self-publishing. Those (excellent) books are now free on his website. The economics and discovery challenges sound like mobile apps. And this is before fractional book royalties are introduced. http://www.newselfpublishing.com/blog/#partyover http://www.newselfpublishing.com/blog/#partyover --- EDIT: trimmed quote POD books provided a handsome profit margin even at reasonable prices. But Kindle books, with their lower prices, have decimated POD sales. Meanwhile, Kindle customers expect more and more for the low prices they pay. Many feel cheated if they spend 99 cents or even less on a book that isn’t “full-length.” And the flood of easily-published books makes it harder and harder for individual ones to stand out—a problem that can only worsen with time. The upshot is, if you want to self publish and are new to it, then by all means, hop in. But for a long time at least, it’s likely to be more for love than for money. Sure, self publishing is still a money machine—but nowadays, that’s mostly for Amazon, not authors. ---
panzagl 12y ago
Looks like the same book selection available through the Prime Kindle Owners Lending Library, which gives you one a month with Prime membership. A nice to have, but not worth paying extra for to me.
oneeyedpigeon 12y ago
It'll be fascinating to see how our relationship with books plays out over the next 10-20 years. On one hand, unlike music, books are very physical objects, their content very much associated with their form, used by many as decoration within their home. On the other hand, most of us only read most of our books once. I suspect that many, like me, then hang onto those books primarily for sentimental reasons (along with the slim chance that someone else might want to borrow them, future children might want to read them, we might re-read them one day, but probably never will), but that feels very much like a cultural fad, albeit quite a long-lived one!
- oh_sigh 12y ago
  Music used to be home decoration too. Walls filled with vinyl, CD and tape racks prominently displayed.
  - oneeyedpigeon 12y ago
    I'm aware of that (my father had quite an extensive 'wall' of vinyl, and I've had bookshelves of CDs in the past, too) but I don't think music-as-display-item was quite in the same league. It was more for real enthusiasts whereas pretty much everyone displayed books, and for a much longer period of history.
    - dfxm12 12y ago
      Well, printed books have been around a lot longer than "printed" music, so of course, there was a time when people (who were lucky/rich enough to own books) displayed books because they had nothing else to display. That's not really a fair comparison, nor one that makes sense in this context. I also think you're really underplaying how people enjoy their music collections. I hold on to records for the same reasons you hold on to books. The next few decades will be interesting. Just like how vinyl has received an increase in popularity for many reasons, if this Kindle Unlimited type of distribution for the written word takes off like digital distribution did for music, you should fully expect hip young people in 2044 to start buying books again.
HarrietJones 12y ago
First they made music a subscription service. And because I like music but I'm a poor struggling author, I didn't listen to those greedy musicians who said this was unfair. Screw you musicians. This Fantasy novel isn't going to get finished unless I can listen to my power-ballad spotify playlist. Then they made video a subscription service. And because I didn't make videos (video being a lesser form of entertainment), I didn't complain. In fact it's great. I get NetFlix for $6.00 a month. And then they devalued the perceived cost of software with the App Store. $0.99 for a game that took tens of thousands of hours of work to complete. Those greedy lazy programmers. And finally, they came for the books. And I spent nearly a full month writing this book. And oh, if it doesn't make me furious that Amazon has the gall, and the temerity to allow people to read it for a fixed monthly subscription. - Signed, a.n. author.
- lukeschlather 12y ago
  And oh, if it doesn't make me furious that my local library has the gall, and the temerity to allow people to read it for free.
  - oneeyedpigeon 12y ago
    Libraries are not always easy to get to, have restricted opening hours, often won't have the latest books available, impose fees if you don't return the book within a certain period of time, can only supply a very limited number of copies of each title at one time, and (as pointed out elsewhere) might require you to be a tax-paying local resident. Libraries have been pretty solidly proven not to negatively affect the market in new books for all these, and possibly more, reasons. Kindle Unlimited is a whole other ballgame.
    - dminor 12y ago
      Most libraries have ebooks you can "check out" without setting foot in their building.
- oh_sigh 12y ago
  Why would you care how much amazon charges for a monthly subscription? Firstly, you don't need to sign up your book to be part of the program. Secondly, it doesn't matter how much amazon charges for the service, it matters how much money you make. Unless you don't care about that, in which case why did you write this post?
JunkDNA 12y ago
Lots of people in this thread are talking about this being scary for authors. When I was a kid, I got to read a ton of books any time I wanted. I got them at this place called a "library" where they let people come in and take books home with them to read for free. People have always had the option to read books without buying them. In those days, going to the library was effectively the same effort as going to a book store. In fact, it was more convenient for my family. We happened to live a few blocks from the library and didn't need to drive across town to the mall to get books in dingy little B. Dalton bookstore. I will grant that the economics in the eBook situation are dramatically different than with physical books, but I really wonder how different they really are. Local libraries already lend ebooks as well. I'm not sure why more people don't take advantage of that.
- wgeorgecook 12y ago
  I was thinking this sounds strangely like a library card you pay $120 a year for.
  - oh_sigh 12y ago
    Well, even if you don't pay anything for a library card up front, most people pay taxes that support their local libraries, so it isn't necessarily free.
  - toomuchtodo 12y ago
    I'm a digital nomad with no fixed address (currently staying with my brother in IL, soon on to Florida to live with family down there). I can't get a library card, because I don't have mail show up at any residence I stay at. $120 for all I can eat books? Take My Money.
  - dan_bk 12y ago
    I was thinking more than 1 person must be thinking this sounds strangely like an invitation for a fat torrent.
  - HelloMcFly 12y ago
    For many, libraries just aren't convenient. Even if the location itself is convenient, navigating the the eBook collection might not be. Even if navigating the eBook collection is convenient, there is often (in my admittedly limited experience) a wait time for the books I'm interested in. Perhaps there are some who would admonish me for sticking almost exclusively to eBooks, or for my laser focus on What I Want rather than other available options. Whatever, let them. The point is that time and convenience are worth money to me, and many others. If my Library let me donate $120 to them annually with the ability to borrow from an eBook collection of 500,000+ without having to go to a local branch or waiting for someone to "return" the digital file then I'd write the check tomorrow. I just get so tired of everyone on social media so smugly pointing out that libraries exist and have books you can borrow for free. Yeah, we get it, but many libraries don't provide the service I'm (and others, it seems) looking for. I have the means to be flexible in my selection of service/product providers, and I choose to spend money on those that match my habits and preferences.
xname 12y ago
I don't understand what other people are complaining for. Is this price too cheap? WHAT? too cheap? WHAT? Is this price too expensive? So just don't buy it. I don't understand.
- taurath 12y ago
  Free is not always better. Sometimes giving up resources increases people's engagement and perception of value with books and other media.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
chudi 12y ago
I think the next step is all you can eat games, we already have movies, books, music, why not games? It seems easy with platforms like Steam
- dfrey 12y ago
  Future Gamer: "I have access to any game in the world, but all I ever play is a combat themed hat collection simulator".
jareds 12y ago
I hope this works on the iPhone although since the Kindle lending library does not I would not be surprised if it doesn't. Since I'm blind a $69 Kindle obviously won't work and I can't justify $200 for a Kindle Fire that I would use just to read books. I did the math and it would take me several years to make buying a Kindle Fire worth while verses just buying the books through Kindle.
- dignati 12y ago
  The Kindle has a T2T engine which makes a pretty good job, I think.
  - jareds 12y ago
    The basic $69 one does not have a speaker. I think the $129 one may though.
slg 12y ago
This type of thing makes me wonder about the business model for authors. An obvious comparison is the music industry. It is common knowledge that almost no musicians make a majority of their money from sales of their music (and only elite acts really make any substantial money). Musicians basically give away their content in the hopes that it attracts people to their live events. Authors do the exact opposite and do numerous free events in hopes that it attracts people to purchase their books. I wonder if this will change over time or if these business models are caused by the inherit value of the content vs experience of each form of art. Stand up comedy probably exists in the middle ground of the two regarding the value of the content vs experience and standups generally follow the musician business model of giving the content away to attract people to their live events.
- walterbell 12y ago
  The physical performance of a book is in the user's imagination, a private, personalized and high definition experience.
neves 12y ago
Nothing different than O'Reilly Safari for tech books. At least I sometimes need to reference old tech books. But do I need to do it for novels?
- smackfu 12y ago
  Shouldn't you buy the tech books, and rent the novels then?
gmisra 12y ago
Here in California, libraries are offering bigger selections of e-books on-line, which usually come with two restrictions: limited time of readability on your device, and limited number of copies available (and a waiting list to manage access). Amazon has historically appeared to support these library programs, presumably because they make kindles more appealing to the core "book purchasing" demographic as well. In the near future I hope to have limited access to all these books for free, or unlimited access for $9.99 a month, and the ability to easily switch between the two consumption models. That, for me, would be an easy sell. This is pretty much how i consume Hulu - most of the time, I just want to watch recent episodes of the Daily Show and am satisfied with the free tier. And when I want to get after specific content, I bump up to the paid tier for a bit. I don't understand why "some content is always free" model isn't more popular in the content world. If Netflix offered something like three free movies a month, I would never "cancel" my account. They would get better brand loyalty, better app lock-in, and lower customer churn. Instead, I get annoyed at the always-on subscription model and cycle between subscribed and unsubscribed. Digitization of content changed distribution patterns, which changed pricing patterns, and the combination of both changed consumption patterns. It feels like there is a feedback loop where now it makes sense for pricing and user management (acquisition, retention) strategies to adapt once again, this time to changes in user behavior and consumption patterns.
NickWarner775 12y ago
The convenience and efficiency of being able to read any book instantly will be a huge boost for education as well I think more people will start reading more books due to this product.
TheMagicHorsey 12y ago
Most people don't spend $9.99 on books every month on average. If Amazon encourages people who are infrequent readers to devote more of their time/entertainment-dollars on reading, then this service will be a win-win for Amazon and authors. Also, if my service is all-you-can-eat, I'm definitely going to take more risks with authors I haven't heard about. That is a definite win for unknown and unpromoted authors. Some of the blockbuster authors may suffer lower revenues ... but fuck them. I'm less worried about JK Rowling who makes a billion dollars on each book, and already has plenty of incentive to write. I'm more worried about Professor Joe Schmoe, a Com. Sci. academic who has this really great AI story inside him, that needs just a little monetary incentive to come out.
- caractacus 12y ago
  One of the great things about the Kindle is that I can sample a chapter or two of any book in the catalogue. This is a massive benefit to me and I'm quite happy to shell out five bucks to buy something if the first couple of chapters hook me. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but a free reading of the start of the book is an enormous benefit. It's a qualitatively different experience than hearing a track or a sample from a music service. So I'm not sure it really will help unknown authors become more widely read - it's free to try them already.
- nlh 12y ago
  > Most people don't spend $9.99 on books every month on average. If Amazon encourages people who are infrequent readers to devote more of their time/entertainment-dollars on reading, then this service will be a win-win for Amazon and authors. Totally. I'm one of those people and right smack in the middle of the crosshairs for this. I'm the kind of person that is always willing to overpay in order to have "unlimited" anything, even if it doesn't make direct financial sense. I'm not sure why, but I guess it's because I don't like having limits or having or budget, etc. Part of the reason I happily pay $9.99/month for Spotify when, if I really think about it, I wouldn't really buy 7-9 new songs a month every month on iTunes. But I don't care -- I'd still rather know I could stream 20 entire albums if I want for that same $9.99. And same goes with Kindle -- I probably (actually, certainly) don't buy a book a month, but knowing I have a catalog of 600k titles at my disposal for $10 will be a no-brainer. /psyched
femto113 12y ago
This is a pretty awesome deal when you consider it for a whole family. I go through a couple books a week reading with my daughter (generally in Kindle format on an iPad). We get what we can from the library, but she really likes series, and if we finish book 4 while book 5 is still a two week wait to check out I'll typically just buy it. Throw in my personal reading and my wife's and we're buying an average of 3-4 books each month.
flatfilefan 12y ago
The business is in owning, managing and curating media catalogues, not in distribution anymore. Almost anyone of us here is capable in setting up a torrent server and distributing any number of books to any number of consumers. Same is valid for music and movies.
mcintyre1994 12y ago
This is a pretty awesome price if that audio book catalogue is Audibles. I signed up for Audible when I started commuting, 1 audio book a month would be just about right since I wanted to start reading asoiaf.. Turns out they split the book in 2 and I only got 16hrs in the month unless I paid notably more than I pay Netflix for unlimited. I decided that was rubbish and cancelled, unlimited is a much better model and this is an awesome price for it.
gmays 12y ago
I'd love an Audible unlimited. I'm sure it's only a matter of time, though it'll likely be > $49/mo., which is reasonable.
lominming 12y ago
Amazon Kindle Unlimited is really converging into what I talked about here: http://blog.minming.net/post/83447062229/unlimited-movies-music-books-magazines http://blog.minming.net/post/83447062229/unlimited-movies-mu.... "I feel like there’s an opportunity here for Amazon to provide a all-you-can-consume digital lifestyle at a fixed subscription price. If we could subscribe to one single service and forget about every pay-as-you-go service, it would be quite an attractive proposition." This is becoming all too real really fast.
cypherpnks 12y ago
Amazon is the new socialism. There are basic services which the government ought to provide -- access to unlimited books, movies, music, software, and similar. It's dramatically more economically efficient that way. The governments won't, for a whole range of reasons. Amazon seems to be stepping up. You pay a private tax, and you join a private government.
- NegativeK 12y ago
  Um. Libraries.
mkr-hn 12y ago
Several of the stores Smashwords distributes to have been in this market for a while. I wonder how they'll react.
sherbondy 12y ago
Any idea what the catalogue will be? Very interested if it includes the kindle editions of the various science and math textbooks offered. E.g. having unfettered access to the entire Dover Books on Mathematics series would be a delight.
WCityMike 12y ago
While this is a neat idea, 600,000 titles seems to me to be a small figure.
ajarmst 12y ago
"Access to a huge panoply of books that are either in public domain or for which we're pretty sure most of you wouldn't pay for anyway!"

304 points by ecrotty 12y ago

"Enjoy unlimited access to over 600,000 titles and thousands of audiobooks" @Audiobooks, does this mean they're replacing Audible?

JustinCEO 12y ago
Answering my own question a bit, it appears to be "no" (at least short term) -- there's a new Kindle Books with Narration in Kindle Unlimited category with only a couple thousand titles http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=9630682011 http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=9630682011

Shivetya 12y ago

I would pay something similar just to browse selected sites all month long without encountering a hundred different pay walls. for a voracious reader like myself this might be a great money saver depending on what is excluded. However it is quite possible to have more than you read for free just by surfing Amazon for all the free ebooks

Jemaclus 12y ago

Awesome. This is a nail in the coffin for Oyster or whatever that other app was. You can't beat Amazon's selection or prices, and this just makes the Netflix comparison even better. Oof. Sucks for competition, good for my Kindle and my wallet.

walterbell 12y ago
Unclear what subset of all Kindle books would be included. http://gigaom.com/2014/07/16/amazon-is-testing-kindle-unlimited-an-ebook-subscription-service-for-9-99month/ http://gigaom.com/2014/07/16/amazon-is-testing-kindle-unlimi... --- No big-5 publisher appears to be participating yet, based on my preliminary glance through the test pages. Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins have both made their ebooks available to Scribd and Oyster, but I haven’t yet seen books from those publishers on the Kindle Unlimited page, though I’m not done poking through all 600,000+ titles yet. ---
- dublinben 12y ago
  The publishers are really in the position to kill this. They obviously don't want to support an Amazon-based unlimited book rental service, and no users will join it if they can't read the books they want to.
  - cstross 12y ago
    It really depends ... How much do people read? Nobody's too sure, but it looks like an extremely long tail distribution -- not just a matter of 80% of the books being read by 20% of the readers, but of 80% being read by maybe 5-10% of the readers. The $9.99/mo price point will work fine for the major publishers if the readers end up on average reading $9.99 of retail-value ebooks per month, but not too much more, and if AMZN's accounting back-end pays them pro-rata for loans. It's like an all-you-can-eat restaurant buffet; some people will pig out, but most people don't fill themselves to the point of nausea, and it all averages out in the end. However, I suspect it's no coincidence that this is surfacing at the same time that AMZN are renegotiating their ebook pricing contracts with the big five (starting with the current dust-up with Hachette). It's another form of leverage: Amazon can offer it as a tasty extra -- in effect, a commercial library access channel -- for compliant publishers, but can also threaten to withhold access to the new channel if they won't play ball over discount structures.
    - dublinben 12y ago
      >How much do people read? Nobody's too sure We actually have a pretty good idea. According to Gallup/Pew research[0], the median American reads 8 books a year. Slightly less than a third read more than one book a month. I doubt any customer who reads less than one ebook (let alone a physical book) per month would find it worth signing up for this service. That leaves the service with mostly heavy consumers of books, which is going to really stretch that $10/mo price point. Since the major publishers already think that a single ebook is worth at least that, I can't see them joining a program that will almost certainly deliver less revenue. [0]http://libraries.pewinternet.org/2012/04/04/the-rise-of-e-reading/ http://libraries.pewinternet.org/2012/04/04/the-rise-of-e-re...
vowelless 12y ago
It was OysterBooks: https://www.oysterbooks.com/ https://www.oysterbooks.com/ It does suck -- in the spirit of competition, I hope they keep on going!
- munificent 12y ago
  What sucks about it?
  - gknoy 12y ago
    I think they meant "It sucks for OysterBooks that Amazon is doing the same thing", rather than "OysterBooks sucks".
eridius 12y ago
Not true. Oyster knew Amazon was going to end up trying this eventually. It's the obvious move. But Oyster also knows that the publishers do not like working with Amazon, which puts Oyster in a much better position to get good deals and get the publisher support necessary to have good books available. So we'll see how well this works. If Amazon can't get the big 5 on board, but Oyster can, then I think they'll do just fine.

frio 12y ago

Interesting. I wonder what this implies for authors. Amazon might take a cut currently, but the lion's share ends up with the author -- a royalty based scheme significantly changes the playing field, and I worry that it could be for the worse (http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-25217353 http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-25217353). EDIT -- and what it implies for publishers.

jonnathanson 12y ago
It'll definitely be interesting to watch. The article you linked talks about the effects of Spotify on making a living as a musician. Spotify economics are, as you've pointed out, much tougher for authors than for songwriters. Books take a lot longer to create than songs. Also, people listen to the same songs hundreds (sometimes even thousands) of times before getting sick of them. People generally read books once. Maybe a few times, over the course of their entire lives, if they really love the book. You don't get the frequency effect that you do with music consumption. So a fractional royalty, multiplied by a lot of individual readers, each of whom reads the book once, is probably the best outcome for any given book in this case. If this model takes hold, the thing that may need to change is the book itself. The economics of subscription suggest a shift in incentives away from the years-long creation of 300+ page tomes, and toward serialization or shorter forms. It behooves me, as an author, to have 10 or 20 "books" (or serialized installments) floating around the system each year, casting a wider net, than to bet the farm on one book a year.
- thisjepisje 12y ago
  > Also, people listen to the same songs hundreds (sometimes even thousands) of times before getting sick of them. But people also don't read as much books as they listen to songs, so naturally the royalty per unit consumed will be higher for books.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- davmre 12y ago

ChuckMcM 12y ago

So they must be testing various parts of the Amazon Prime value proposition as piecework services. Lets see 'Unlimited {video | kindle | music}' for 9.95 each or get all three for $24.95. Seems Kindle is a safer way to start since neither Spotify or Netflix is going to respond competitively to book reader services.

smackfu 12y ago

Once you get past the big name books where Amazon is probably subsidizing the costs, a lot of the content is Amazon-published. I wonder what that compensation looks like.

JimmaDaRustla 12y ago

Suddenly the disgruntled publishers makes sense.

dublinben 12y ago

Most of these books are available through your local library for free.

davorb 12y ago
That's true of most books, yet people still seem to buy them.
hnha 12y ago
Actually I doubt that, 50% are probably automatically generated rubbish that is (luckily) not available in a local library. But yeah, this is probably just "renting". I doubt you could download them all but I would love to try doing exactly that.
dingaling 12y ago
> Most of these books are available through your local library for free. All inter-library loans in my library board cost 1 UKP ( c. $1.40 ) which quickly mounts-up when there's very little on the shelf in the local branch. I could read 'Excel 2003 for Dummies' again, I suppose, but I'm a bit bored of it to be honest...
- dublinben 12y ago
  In the US, many libraries have a system called Overdrive that offers ebooks (and audiobooks) for borrowing. It's essentially a free version of this service, but with better selection.
  - ctdonath 12y ago
    Hoopla as well.
smackfu 12y ago
Actually, I bet most of these books are published by Amazon and are Kindle exclusives. Then they manually add in a few hundred or thousand well-known books to make it look like a grand selection.
12y ago

ecrotty 12y ago

There is a lot of reaction on the source by indie authors, including Hugh Howey, on kboards : http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,189900.0.html http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,189900.0.html

gdilla 12y ago

This won't have the major publishing houses titles (beyond those who have agreed to work with Oyster). So no Penguin Random House, the market leader in print and audio. It also remains to be seen if the subscription model can work for books - they take longer to consume than movies or music. So you can imaging slower or busy readers being punished with a subscription unless they make it through 1.5 books per month which is where it makes sense to buy it. I don't think many people would like that over their head. Plus there's the library and used books, and just borrowing - all things we do way less of for movies and music.

kryptiskt 12y ago
One thing that immediately strikes me is that this would be very useful for nonfiction, if one wants to nibble a chapter here and a chapter there. For my own use I'm more worried that unlimited really is "unlimited". Not that it's going to matter for me, the chance that it will be available outside the US is nil.
jack-r-abbit 12y ago
On the other side of that, it kind of makes more sense (to me) to buy music and rent (subscribe to) books because music is usually listened to repeatedly while books are usually read once and then not again (or at least not for a long time after the first time).
- dublinben 12y ago
  On the other hand, you will almost always want access to an enormous music library (few $ per month), but might not always need a new book. With used paperbacks only a few bucks each, you can collect (or cycle through) a lot of books for $120/year.
  - jack-r-abbit 12y ago
    True. But we're not talking about used paperbacks anymore more than we're talking about used CDs. Digital copies of books are not discounted once they're "used" so you aren't going to collect as many ebooks for $120/year. It really just depends on the usage patterns. My kids could probably put a $10/month book service out of business. I would probably be their best customer with like 1 book a quarter. :)

riffraff 12y ago

how was this leaked?

PostOnce 12y ago
"Leaked" now means "intentionally released to the media by the marketing department" How this came to be I don't know; leaks are bad. They're unintentional (by the company) and contain unfinished/unspun/out of context information that can possibly be detrimental to the company. Yet people keep using it to mean "press release"

will_work4tears 12y ago

I wonder about the average use specifics for kindle users. Obviously Amazon has insight into this and would set their pricing appropriately. Assuming the kind of books listed here are the kind on the daily deal (1.99): The average user would have to read only 4-5 books a month to break even (say 9 books every two months counting taxes). I doubt most users would read that consistently. Maybe the first month, but usage would likely drop, and the deal works out better in Amazon's favor until they quit. Which for many users could be until their credit card expires. I probably only read 6 books a month at the most these days, and some months I probably drop down as low as 1 book every month several times a year. I'd probably enroll in this service so even if they have 9.99 normal cost ebooks, I think overall it'd work so Amazon doesn't lose much more than they would with their current structure.

mavrc 12y ago
Things look a lot rosier for audiobook listeners, though, because audiobooks are significantly more expensive than textbooks. Even the cheapest Audible subscription is $15. I'm really looking forward to seeing what they mean by "thousands of audiobooks;" if they're incorporating the Audible library, then this is an easy decision.
- ericdykstra 12y ago
  I'm an Audible subscriber (all of my book-reading comes via audiobook), and I would obviously jump over immediately if the entire library was available. Audible has many more than "thousands" of books, though, so I think it will be a gradual process.
  - Splendor 12y ago
    I'm very confused by all of this since Amazon owns Audible.

higherpurpose 12y ago

Awesome. I've been hoping Amazon would do this, since Google or any of their competitors were too shortsighted to do this for books, even though it was their only chance to disrupt Amazon and actually take some market share in ebooks from them. But once again, Amazon is the one innovating and disrupting itself, even as an almost monopoly. This should be great for people who want to read a lot of books, and could even encourage people who only read say 1 book per year, to read a lot more.

thrush 12y ago

Will this compete with Safari Books Online (https://www.safaribooksonline.com/ https://www.safaribooksonline.com/)?

paultannenbaum 12y ago
Looks like it. I see Scribd as the company most affected by this.
troymc 12y ago
I think Safari Books Online is mostly tech books. Yes, I know it has other stuff, but Harry Potter? Lord of the Rings? No.

cliveowen 12y ago

A few weeks ago Jon Evans of TechCrunch said this: "Despite my techie contempt for their business practices, I really do want traditional publishers to survive, because their employees — unlike, I suspect, Amazon’s — tend to genuinely love books in the same way that I do, and because good editors are worth their weight in gold. But it’s hard to see how they can thrive fighting like this. In the long run their only real hope is to disrupt the Kindle ecosystem with a paid subscription model — a “Beats for books,” if you will. I’m not sure how successful that will be. Books are not like songs. But it’s hard to see where else their future lies. Never mind the current Amazon vs. Hachette skirmish; that’s just a sideshow. Book publishers essentially conceded their long war with Amazon before it ever began, without even knowing what they were doing." [1] Looks like he was spot on, and it looks like Amazon won the whole war. EDIT: It looks like he predicted this almost a year ago in another article: "With luck we’re entering a world in which readers have access to any and every book for a flat fee; authors get paid depending on how much they’re actually read; publishers remain a vital but decreasingly visible part of the process; physical books are still available via online print-on-demand and niche physical stores; and zillions of CC-licensed books are freely available to readers in the poor world who can’t yet afford books or subscription services. Call me Pollyanna, but it seems to me that that’s a win for absolutely everyone." [2] And I have to agree, this looks like a big win for everyone. [1] http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/14/the-only-tragedy-of-this-war-is-that-one-day-it-will-end/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/14/the-only-tragedy-of-this-wa... [2] http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/07/its-almost-time-to-throw-out-your-books/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/07/its-almost-time-to-throw-ou...

programminggeek 12y ago
It's not exactly a huge win for authors, but you never know. While the business of selling millions of individual copies of a books might go away, the opportunity to grow an audience and leverage that is a different thing. The authors who figure out how to leverage more than just selling a book are the ones who will do well. The ones who don't build an audience will likely fail at a higher rate than they did previously.
walterbell 12y ago
Do you see someone other than publishers providing risk capital for authors to live while writing?

scarmig 12y ago

It seems that you can search which books are going to be available through it, at last as of this moment http://www.amazon.com/s?url=node%3D9578129011&field-keywords=#{WHATEVER_YOURE_SEARCHING_FOR} http://www.amazon.com/s?url=node%3D9578129011&field-keywords... Selection seems extremely paltry, though.

paul_f 12y ago

This looks scary for authors, and maybe it should. Like digital music and movies, the marginal cost of an ebook is pretty much zero. If you are an author, you need to rethink how to make money from your work. It won't be from selling $10 books much longer.

walterbell 12y ago
The following analysis of self-publishing's future is from an author who had two successful books on self-publishing. Those (excellent) books are now free on his website. The economics and discovery challenges sound like mobile apps. And this is before fractional book royalties are introduced. http://www.newselfpublishing.com/blog/#partyover http://www.newselfpublishing.com/blog/#partyover --- EDIT: trimmed quote POD books provided a handsome profit margin even at reasonable prices. But Kindle books, with their lower prices, have decimated POD sales. Meanwhile, Kindle customers expect more and more for the low prices they pay. Many feel cheated if they spend 99 cents or even less on a book that isn’t “full-length.” And the flood of easily-published books makes it harder and harder for individual ones to stand out—a problem that can only worsen with time. The upshot is, if you want to self publish and are new to it, then by all means, hop in. But for a long time at least, it’s likely to be more for love than for money. Sure, self publishing is still a money machine—but nowadays, that’s mostly for Amazon, not authors. ---

panzagl 12y ago

Looks like the same book selection available through the Prime Kindle Owners Lending Library, which gives you one a month with Prime membership. A nice to have, but not worth paying extra for to me.

oneeyedpigeon 12y ago

It'll be fascinating to see how our relationship with books plays out over the next 10-20 years. On one hand, unlike music, books are very physical objects, their content very much associated with their form, used by many as decoration within their home. On the other hand, most of us only read most of our books once. I suspect that many, like me, then hang onto those books primarily for sentimental reasons (along with the slim chance that someone else might want to borrow them, future children might want to read them, we might re-read them one day, but probably never will), but that feels very much like a cultural fad, albeit quite a long-lived one!

oh_sigh 12y ago
Music used to be home decoration too. Walls filled with vinyl, CD and tape racks prominently displayed.
- oneeyedpigeon 12y ago
  I'm aware of that (my father had quite an extensive 'wall' of vinyl, and I've had bookshelves of CDs in the past, too) but I don't think music-as-display-item was quite in the same league. It was more for real enthusiasts whereas pretty much everyone displayed books, and for a much longer period of history.
  - dfxm12 12y ago
    Well, printed books have been around a lot longer than "printed" music, so of course, there was a time when people (who were lucky/rich enough to own books) displayed books because they had nothing else to display. That's not really a fair comparison, nor one that makes sense in this context. I also think you're really underplaying how people enjoy their music collections. I hold on to records for the same reasons you hold on to books. The next few decades will be interesting. Just like how vinyl has received an increase in popularity for many reasons, if this Kindle Unlimited type of distribution for the written word takes off like digital distribution did for music, you should fully expect hip young people in 2044 to start buying books again.

HarrietJones 12y ago

First they made music a subscription service. And because I like music but I'm a poor struggling author, I didn't listen to those greedy musicians who said this was unfair. Screw you musicians. This Fantasy novel isn't going to get finished unless I can listen to my power-ballad spotify playlist. Then they made video a subscription service. And because I didn't make videos (video being a lesser form of entertainment), I didn't complain. In fact it's great. I get NetFlix for $6.00 a month. And then they devalued the perceived cost of software with the App Store. $0.99 for a game that took tens of thousands of hours of work to complete. Those greedy lazy programmers. And finally, they came for the books. And I spent nearly a full month writing this book. And oh, if it doesn't make me furious that Amazon has the gall, and the temerity to allow people to read it for a fixed monthly subscription. - Signed, a.n. author.

lukeschlather 12y ago
And oh, if it doesn't make me furious that my local library has the gall, and the temerity to allow people to read it for free.
- oneeyedpigeon 12y ago
  Libraries are not always easy to get to, have restricted opening hours, often won't have the latest books available, impose fees if you don't return the book within a certain period of time, can only supply a very limited number of copies of each title at one time, and (as pointed out elsewhere) might require you to be a tax-paying local resident. Libraries have been pretty solidly proven not to negatively affect the market in new books for all these, and possibly more, reasons. Kindle Unlimited is a whole other ballgame.
  - dminor 12y ago
    Most libraries have ebooks you can "check out" without setting foot in their building.
oh_sigh 12y ago
Why would you care how much amazon charges for a monthly subscription? Firstly, you don't need to sign up your book to be part of the program. Secondly, it doesn't matter how much amazon charges for the service, it matters how much money you make. Unless you don't care about that, in which case why did you write this post?

JunkDNA 12y ago

Lots of people in this thread are talking about this being scary for authors. When I was a kid, I got to read a ton of books any time I wanted. I got them at this place called a "library" where they let people come in and take books home with them to read for free. People have always had the option to read books without buying them. In those days, going to the library was effectively the same effort as going to a book store. In fact, it was more convenient for my family. We happened to live a few blocks from the library and didn't need to drive across town to the mall to get books in dingy little B. Dalton bookstore. I will grant that the economics in the eBook situation are dramatically different than with physical books, but I really wonder how different they really are. Local libraries already lend ebooks as well. I'm not sure why more people don't take advantage of that.

wgeorgecook 12y ago
I was thinking this sounds strangely like a library card you pay $120 a year for.
- oh_sigh 12y ago
  Well, even if you don't pay anything for a library card up front, most people pay taxes that support their local libraries, so it isn't necessarily free.
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  I'm a digital nomad with no fixed address (currently staying with my brother in IL, soon on to Florida to live with family down there). I can't get a library card, because I don't have mail show up at any residence I stay at. $120 for all I can eat books? Take My Money.
- dan_bk 12y ago
  I was thinking more than 1 person must be thinking this sounds strangely like an invitation for a fat torrent.
- HelloMcFly 12y ago
  For many, libraries just aren't convenient. Even if the location itself is convenient, navigating the the eBook collection might not be. Even if navigating the eBook collection is convenient, there is often (in my admittedly limited experience) a wait time for the books I'm interested in. Perhaps there are some who would admonish me for sticking almost exclusively to eBooks, or for my laser focus on What I Want rather than other available options. Whatever, let them. The point is that time and convenience are worth money to me, and many others. If my Library let me donate $120 to them annually with the ability to borrow from an eBook collection of 500,000+ without having to go to a local branch or waiting for someone to "return" the digital file then I'd write the check tomorrow. I just get so tired of everyone on social media so smugly pointing out that libraries exist and have books you can borrow for free. Yeah, we get it, but many libraries don't provide the service I'm (and others, it seems) looking for. I have the means to be flexible in my selection of service/product providers, and I choose to spend money on those that match my habits and preferences.

xname 12y ago

I don't understand what other people are complaining for. Is this price too cheap? WHAT? too cheap? WHAT? Is this price too expensive? So just don't buy it. I don't understand.

taurath 12y ago
Free is not always better. Sometimes giving up resources increases people's engagement and perception of value with books and other media.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

chudi 12y ago

I think the next step is all you can eat games, we already have movies, books, music, why not games? It seems easy with platforms like Steam

dfrey 12y ago
Future Gamer: "I have access to any game in the world, but all I ever play is a combat themed hat collection simulator".

jareds 12y ago

I hope this works on the iPhone although since the Kindle lending library does not I would not be surprised if it doesn't. Since I'm blind a $69 Kindle obviously won't work and I can't justify $200 for a Kindle Fire that I would use just to read books. I did the math and it would take me several years to make buying a Kindle Fire worth while verses just buying the books through Kindle.

dignati 12y ago
The Kindle has a T2T engine which makes a pretty good job, I think.
- jareds 12y ago
  The basic $69 one does not have a speaker. I think the $129 one may though.

slg 12y ago

This type of thing makes me wonder about the business model for authors. An obvious comparison is the music industry. It is common knowledge that almost no musicians make a majority of their money from sales of their music (and only elite acts really make any substantial money). Musicians basically give away their content in the hopes that it attracts people to their live events. Authors do the exact opposite and do numerous free events in hopes that it attracts people to purchase their books. I wonder if this will change over time or if these business models are caused by the inherit value of the content vs experience of each form of art. Stand up comedy probably exists in the middle ground of the two regarding the value of the content vs experience and standups generally follow the musician business model of giving the content away to attract people to their live events.

walterbell 12y ago
The physical performance of a book is in the user's imagination, a private, personalized and high definition experience.

neves 12y ago

Nothing different than O'Reilly Safari for tech books. At least I sometimes need to reference old tech books. But do I need to do it for novels?

smackfu 12y ago
Shouldn't you buy the tech books, and rent the novels then?

gmisra 12y ago

Here in California, libraries are offering bigger selections of e-books on-line, which usually come with two restrictions: limited time of readability on your device, and limited number of copies available (and a waiting list to manage access). Amazon has historically appeared to support these library programs, presumably because they make kindles more appealing to the core "book purchasing" demographic as well. In the near future I hope to have limited access to all these books for free, or unlimited access for $9.99 a month, and the ability to easily switch between the two consumption models. That, for me, would be an easy sell. This is pretty much how i consume Hulu - most of the time, I just want to watch recent episodes of the Daily Show and am satisfied with the free tier. And when I want to get after specific content, I bump up to the paid tier for a bit. I don't understand why "some content is always free" model isn't more popular in the content world. If Netflix offered something like three free movies a month, I would never "cancel" my account. They would get better brand loyalty, better app lock-in, and lower customer churn. Instead, I get annoyed at the always-on subscription model and cycle between subscribed and unsubscribed. Digitization of content changed distribution patterns, which changed pricing patterns, and the combination of both changed consumption patterns. It feels like there is a feedback loop where now it makes sense for pricing and user management (acquisition, retention) strategies to adapt once again, this time to changes in user behavior and consumption patterns.

NickWarner775 12y ago

The convenience and efficiency of being able to read any book instantly will be a huge boost for education as well I think more people will start reading more books due to this product.

TheMagicHorsey 12y ago

Most people don't spend $9.99 on books every month on average. If Amazon encourages people who are infrequent readers to devote more of their time/entertainment-dollars on reading, then this service will be a win-win for Amazon and authors. Also, if my service is all-you-can-eat, I'm definitely going to take more risks with authors I haven't heard about. That is a definite win for unknown and unpromoted authors. Some of the blockbuster authors may suffer lower revenues ... but fuck them. I'm less worried about JK Rowling who makes a billion dollars on each book, and already has plenty of incentive to write. I'm more worried about Professor Joe Schmoe, a Com. Sci. academic who has this really great AI story inside him, that needs just a little monetary incentive to come out.

caractacus 12y ago
One of the great things about the Kindle is that I can sample a chapter or two of any book in the catalogue. This is a massive benefit to me and I'm quite happy to shell out five bucks to buy something if the first couple of chapters hook me. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but a free reading of the start of the book is an enormous benefit. It's a qualitatively different experience than hearing a track or a sample from a music service. So I'm not sure it really will help unknown authors become more widely read - it's free to try them already.
nlh 12y ago
> Most people don't spend $9.99 on books every month on average. If Amazon encourages people who are infrequent readers to devote more of their time/entertainment-dollars on reading, then this service will be a win-win for Amazon and authors. Totally. I'm one of those people and right smack in the middle of the crosshairs for this. I'm the kind of person that is always willing to overpay in order to have "unlimited" anything, even if it doesn't make direct financial sense. I'm not sure why, but I guess it's because I don't like having limits or having or budget, etc. Part of the reason I happily pay $9.99/month for Spotify when, if I really think about it, I wouldn't really buy 7-9 new songs a month every month on iTunes. But I don't care -- I'd still rather know I could stream 20 entire albums if I want for that same $9.99. And same goes with Kindle -- I probably (actually, certainly) don't buy a book a month, but knowing I have a catalog of 600k titles at my disposal for $10 will be a no-brainer. /psyched

femto113 12y ago

This is a pretty awesome deal when you consider it for a whole family. I go through a couple books a week reading with my daughter (generally in Kindle format on an iPad). We get what we can from the library, but she really likes series, and if we finish book 4 while book 5 is still a two week wait to check out I'll typically just buy it. Throw in my personal reading and my wife's and we're buying an average of 3-4 books each month.

flatfilefan 12y ago

The business is in owning, managing and curating media catalogues, not in distribution anymore. Almost anyone of us here is capable in setting up a torrent server and distributing any number of books to any number of consumers. Same is valid for music and movies.

mcintyre1994 12y ago

This is a pretty awesome price if that audio book catalogue is Audibles. I signed up for Audible when I started commuting, 1 audio book a month would be just about right since I wanted to start reading asoiaf.. Turns out they split the book in 2 and I only got 16hrs in the month unless I paid notably more than I pay Netflix for unlimited. I decided that was rubbish and cancelled, unlimited is a much better model and this is an awesome price for it.

gmays 12y ago

I'd love an Audible unlimited. I'm sure it's only a matter of time, though it'll likely be > $49/mo., which is reasonable.

lominming 12y ago

Amazon Kindle Unlimited is really converging into what I talked about here: http://blog.minming.net/post/83447062229/unlimited-movies-music-books-magazines http://blog.minming.net/post/83447062229/unlimited-movies-mu.... "I feel like there’s an opportunity here for Amazon to provide a all-you-can-consume digital lifestyle at a fixed subscription price. If we could subscribe to one single service and forget about every pay-as-you-go service, it would be quite an attractive proposition." This is becoming all too real really fast.

cypherpnks 12y ago

Amazon is the new socialism. There are basic services which the government ought to provide -- access to unlimited books, movies, music, software, and similar. It's dramatically more economically efficient that way. The governments won't, for a whole range of reasons. Amazon seems to be stepping up. You pay a private tax, and you join a private government.

NegativeK 12y ago
Um. Libraries.

mkr-hn 12y ago

Several of the stores Smashwords distributes to have been in this market for a while. I wonder how they'll react.

sherbondy 12y ago

Any idea what the catalogue will be? Very interested if it includes the kindle editions of the various science and math textbooks offered. E.g. having unfettered access to the entire Dover Books on Mathematics series would be a delight.

WCityMike 12y ago

While this is a neat idea, 600,000 titles seems to me to be a small figure.

ajarmst 12y ago

"Access to a huge panoply of books that are either in public domain or for which we're pretty sure most of you wouldn't pay for anyway!"