It appears Seattle-based Amazon may be extending a new limb in its ebook branch. The company may start a subscription service for ebooks on Kindle reader devices and it appears to be in a testing phase.
Amazon, founded by Jeff Bezos, is an online retail powerhouse, with a vast international presence. They are probably the most successful digital content provider for books, hardcopy and digital. Only Google comes close, alongside Barnes & Noble, which started as a tradtional "big box" bookstore. Apple has also ventured into the game a bit. But will ebook subscription give Amazon even more of a competetitive edge?
According to reports, the service seems to be similar to digital music services like Spotify, in terms of price and catalog. For roughly $10 per month, Kindle users can access a vast Amazon collection, roughly half a million e-books. They would have unilmited access to these products per their subscription.
There are other subscription services for ebooks. They include Oyster and Scribd. These companies are mostly independent publishers and the like. However, if Amazon enters the playing field, they would automatically become the biggest to play the game.
The test pages reportedly appeared in some Kindle user boards. According to another report, those Amazon.com pages containing the leaked information have been removed. The service is allegedly called "Kindle Unlimited."
The largest publishers are reportedly sticking with Scribd and Oyster for now, according to reports. Amazon has not yet responded publicly to members of the media regarding the service.
The real question, for publishers and authors anyway, is how revenue from that service will be compensated fairly from distributor to orginal content creator. As it stands, Spotify and other digital streaming services for music don't pay the artists much at all, fractions of a penny per play most of the time.
According to another source, the so-called Kindle Unlimited content would also be available on all other devices including Google's Android and Apple's iOS (iPad and iPhone).
Though no major "top 5" publishers were reported to be on board with Kindle Unlimited, several smaller ones were and many titles were reported to be from Amazon's own publishing branch.
The CEOs of both Scribd and Oyster, Trip Adler and Eric Stromberg, respectively, agree that it would be good for the ebook market as a whole. They both told the press that they weren't surprised by the company's alleged move to a subscription model.
