Amazon is reportedly testing "Kindle Unlimited," a service which allow users to have unlimited access on ebooks and audiobooks for a monthly fee of $9.99.
Test pages revealing the promotion were uploaded but pulled down on Wednesday, not after Kindleboards users noticed the pages. Some pages are even still active on the Amazon website.
The promotional material on the Kindle Unlimited service reads, "Enjoy unlimited access to over 600,000 titles and thousands of audiobooks on any device for just $9.99 a month."
The service, which has been the subject of rumors for a few months, will see Amazon competing with other ebook subscription services such as Oyster and Scribd. Oyster Books was referred to as "Netflix for books" when it was first launched.
Oyster Books charges a monthly fee of $9.95 to give users access to over 500,000 books. Scribd, on the other hand, charges a monthly fee of $8.99 per month to give users access to over 400,000 books.
However, in addition to the much bigger collection of titles being offered by Amazon's Kindle Unlimited, the service also offers access to more than 7,000 audiobooks. The audiobook market has been largely dominated by Amazon, with critics even saying that the company holds a monopoly over the market, especially with Amazon purchasing Audible in 2008. Audible was the top audio entertainment producer then, with the biggest collection of audiobooks in the world.
Last month, a report revealed that Amazon approached publishers in the United States about being part of Kindle Unlimited.
One of the test pages listed the 638,416 titles initially available in the service. Among the books are many titles from the company's publishing imprints, and many titles are also available on the Kindle Owners Lending Library.
In the Lending Library, members of Amazon Prime that are also Kindle users can borrow an ebook for free once a month. Currently included in the Lending Library are the Harry Potter series and the Hunger Games series.
Other titles revealed in the Kindle Unlimited test page include 1984, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Water for Elephants, Life of Pi, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and Moneyball.
Because of the existing relationship that Amazon has with major book publishing houses around the world from its bookstore business, along with its leverage in the industry that allows the company to make the best deals for them with publishers, authors and retailers, Amazon is expected to find great success amid the current competition.
Oyster CEO Eric Stromberg, however, sees Amazon's entry into the unlimited ebook market as a good thing for the industry.
"We're not surprised. They have pivoted from transactional to subscription-based in other media, and have had limited success," said Stromberg. "They really paved the way in ebooks, and it's exciting to see them embrace the market we created as the future of books."
