Oyster's online catalog contains a lot of books, more than a million — but if your interest isn't piqued by that selection, you can now purchase extra books on the company's new online digital bookstore.
The move puts Oyster in direct competition with e-book retailers like Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Google, as well as its existing rivals in the book subscription market like Scribd.
Oyster announced the new digital bookstore, which is already live, via a blog post on April 8. The store's collection includes titles from all five major publishers: Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster.
The subscription catalog, in contrast, does not yet house books published by Penguin Random House or Hachette. Some publishers have been reluctant to embrace the book subscription model, fearing that it will devalue books in the consumer's mind.
Previously, users had to pay $9.95 a month for unlimited access to Oyster's catalog of more than a million books. The change is likely to attract a new type of user who wants to make one-off purchases. It also gives users a chance to permanently own a copy of a favorite book for posterity — without having to worry about keeping up the monthly subscription.
Eric Stromberg, Oyster's chief executive, said the company's e-book prices would be "competitive with the marketplace," though a quick comparison of top-billed titles with Amazon and Google Play suggest slightly higher prices. "The Girl on the Train," which Oyster cites in its blog as one of the new books available, costs $12.99 on Oyster — compared with $5.94 on Amazon Kindle and $6.99 on Google Play.
What users do get with Oyster is a beautifully designed app for various devices with significant editorial recommendations. Oyster also launched its own literary magazine, The Oyster Review, in 2014. Oyster claims that its users are now reading more than 100 million pages per month – up from eight million in December 2013 – but the company is facing increasing competition.
Scribd also gives users access to more than a million books for $8.99 a month, and last year Amazon launched Kindle Unlimited, which allows users to chose from more than 700,000 e-books for $10 a month.
Users can access the Oyster e-book store on the website or via free apps available for Android, iOS and Amazon Fire.
Offering extra titles for sale alongside a subscription service is an interesting model that would surely be popular in other formats. Netflix users would likely welcome the opportunity to buy or rent a movie when they realize it isn't available in their subscription package.
