Oyster, a Start-Up for E-Reading, Raises $14 Million

When i was a nerdy little boy, had someone asked me what I'd do with 1 million dollar, I might have answered I would build a huge library, because nothing is as awesome as a great library.

Today, I have the biggest encyclopedia humankind ever made with me all the time, my university gives me access to the most recent research in my field from anywhere in the world, and for a tiny fraction of my income I get all the great music, all the movies (okay, some work needed there), and soon the almighty library I dreamed of as a child. These are wonderful times we life in.

> On Oyster, once a person reads more than 10 percent of the book, it is officially considered “read.” Oyster then has to pay the publisher a standard wholesale fee.

via: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/25/technology/as-new-services...

This article also talks about the "Sizzler Problem." Oyster costs $10/mo, so they basically have to hope that, on aggregate, people won't read more than that in cost of wholesale fees. It'd be really interesting to look at their actual numbers against Spotify and the other companies with a similar model. According to the article, only 2% of users read more than 10 books a month.

I'd imagine that the % of users that actually "cost" them money couldn't be more than ~5-10% of their entire subscriber-base. Anyone have any insight into this?

I guess a negative reaction on HN isn't always necessarily an indicator of potential failure: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6335153

Don't take a negative reaction as the be all and end all when you present something to people.

I am Oyster subscriber. Their app is pleasant to use. I do miss a little more organization, but I am fine with it overall.

It is heavily curated ie. you get a lot of suggestions. And since they have rather limited selection, this is great. I managed to read through 3 books already and have a queue of several. I noticed that some were from Gutenberg project, so I guess they will not have to pay for those.

Overall I like experience and will continue to use, as well as Amazon and piratebay and other services to get myself books.

Only thing that might turn me off is, they have limited selection, but they can remedy that while I am going through books already available.

I really need them to come up with good Android app.

If only there were public institutions where you could get books (and eBooks!) for free...

I am concerned about a Spotify-style situation arising with these subscription reading services, in which platform operators and powerful middlemen reap the profits while content creators get the scraps (1). GigaOm found that both Scribd and Oyster have been vague about the payouts for authors (2), and this new article by the NY Times doesn't clear up the uncertainty.

1. http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2012/09/26/161758720/how-...

2. http://gigaom.com/2013/10/01/scribd-moves-beyond-document-sh...

Seems like a great service, it would be a no-brainer for me to sign up if they had a bigger non-fiction selection. Not just business, but foreign language, tech, science, etc. Maybe they have this already, but I didn't even see a non-fiction category. Am I missing something, and if not are there any good reasons why non-fiction doesn't feature more prominently in the selection?

Subscriber here. I think paying the $10 a month provides another incentive for me to read. I don't know if I am getting $10 worth of material to read each month, i.e. finishing about half a book every month, but it sure has increased the amount of reading I do since I started using the service.

Oyster, a Start-Up name that was already a name for another startup… oyster.com

I'm really having a hard time with this product. It's basically taking something that exists for free...a library...and repackaging it as an app.

Now don't get me wrong I admire a nicely designed product just as much as the next person but how is this worth $10 alone?

I can literally subscribe to an RSS feed that gives me free ebooks daily[1]. Granted they aren't always the best reads but they are free. Aside from that I can go to the local library and checkout any physical book I want for free.

I think a much better product would be monthly unlimited audio books. Like spotify combined with audible. Now that I would pay for.

1.) http://www.freebooksifter.com/

I am paying something similar per month for safari service from Oreilly ( mostly tech books). I would gladly switch to a service that offers a wider range of books .