Oyster is launching an e-book store
wired.com
wired.com
FFS, our local library lets you "borrow" e-books and audiobooks online, you never have to set foot in the building.
If you can get an epub or mobi version of the book you borrowed, you can use Calibre [1] to put it on your e-ink device. You can also email books to your kindle, but I've had mixed success with that.
I do like Calibre, which I've used to get Project Gutenberg books among others onto it.
Hoarding ebooks like physical properties is not a good way to behave.
As someone who deals with e-books for libraries, I feel that frustration, but I also understand where publishers are coming from. They are doing everything they can to hold onto a business model they have been successful with. They also have authors to deal with, who have been successful with the same model and control the production of the product, to some extent.
That said, I suspect many libraries would be willing to license e-books like they license journal content: on an all access subscription model.
The smug overconfidence ("ffs"?) of your reply tells me that many who are spreading the good word about public libraries are overestating their offerings. (But then again, others are ignorant that ebooks exist at public libraries so maybe all of the blind spots from both sides evens out.)
The caveat you're leaving out is that the public libraries have a limited ebook catalog.
I'll use Atlanta GA public libary as an example. It's a major city with a decent sized library.
Look at the Michael Chabon ebooks available from their public library:
http://afpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/default/search/results?qu=c...
The public library certain has all of his books in hardcopy format but for ebooks, it's just 2 titles. Compare with the 13 titles on Oyster:
https://www.oysterbooks.com/author/NakTfeyKUXxFcvzHC2JKFD
Again, look at another popular book, "The Goldfinch":
http://afpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/default/search/results?qu=T...
There is no ebook available at all from Atlanta's library. But Oyster has it:
https://www.oysterbooks.com/book/Kf4mghNUTfnJSiJS758h5V/the-...
The public library works great for those who don't have a specific reading list and would be satisified with "whatever" limited selection they happen to have. (Yes, you can request your public library to buy a new book but that's a separate administrative step and their committee has to review it before adding it to the budget.)
To summarize the disadvantages of ebooks at public libraries mentioned by others:
-- limited selection of titles
-- of the titles the library actually has in the collection, there is a cap on # of simultaneous checkouts from the "virtual inventory". This will result in a wait list for an ebook if it's a popular title
-- the ebooks have a "due date" and the DRM of the ebook will enforce that
-- some libraries only offer DRM epub formats that are not readable on Kindle (unless the user is tech savvy with 3rd party conversion software)
That said, limited availability is a much more complicated problem than budgeting or selection. With print books there's a very well established workflow and discount model. Wholesalers who sell to libraries provide steep (up to 40%) discounts and a very polished workflow for selecting titles (we have standing orders for best-sellers, top authors, big series, etc, that save us hours of work). Ebook vendors don't offer discounts because publishers control prices and the selection model is not nearly as polished.
Additionally, all major publishers have some limitation on their ebooks. For some vendors we pay up to 3x the cost of a retail hardcover and for others we are limited on the number of times the title can check out (26 or 52 times, depending on the vendor). Still others simply sell on a 1 or 5 year lease model. Libraries are still trying to adjust their budget models and workflows to fir these new limitations we've never had to deal with before.
So yes, I love libraries, but it's not nearly as simple as "your library has ebooks" and that's a sad state.
I get it for older books, that makes sense, since at that point most of the books would stop selling and be worth more as a means to get readers to buy the next in the series.
That's the point I'm trying to make. Physical materials, the materials libraries have built their workflows and budgets around, operate using different rules. Wholesalers will provide discounts because libraries buy lots of stuff and so better discounts mean moving more materials and, more importantly, stopping customers from going to another wholesaler. E-books have no wholesaler. They are controlled by the publisher so there is no going to a competitor for better pricing. Thus higher prices (in the realm of 3x the retail hardcover).
That said, publishers have been lowering prices and increasing access slowly. Along with being competitors, libraries are customers, and big ones. Public libraries buy more that 1 billion in materials a year. That's a lot to walk away from because they are "competitors".
My point was just to communicate that though libraries offer value, It's difficult to compete with something like Oyster at the moment.
After doing some research, here’s the part that the Wired article doesn’t make explicit:
Yes, the Oyster subscription service is has titles from "all 5 big publishers" and yes, it is "unlimited" but the catch is that the content is mostly the publishers’ back catalogs. In other words, a brand new book release would not have been available on the $9.95 subscription service on the first day. This is similar to Amazon Prime Instant Video where the old seasons of TV shows are free but the latest/last/current season costs $$$. Spotify for music also works like that for some artists; Adele has her old songs available in the subscription but her brand new song might only be available from iTunes for $1.29.
It looks like a common industry pattern of segmentation whether it's books, videos, or songs: the old stuff can be packaged into cheap subscriptions but the new stuff will command a separate premium.
With Oyster adding the ebook retail component, members can get access to the very latest books without waiting months (or years) for the title to show up as a subscription option. The members simply buy the ebook as a separate additional charge from the $9.95 subscription.
Since Jeff Bezos’ seems to have a very antagonistic relationship with the book publishers, it gives Oyster a chance for significant ebook sales.
What’s odd is that Jeff Bezos studied Walmart and he surely knows that the brick&morter stores share analytics sales data with their vendors. That way, the vendors can maximize efficiency of their supply chains and in turn, offer lower prices to Walmart. The article implies that amazon.com does not share analytics with the publishers (unlike Oyster) . I don’t know why Bezos would be so guarded about it since it can help publishers fine tune their offerings which in turn should help Jeff sell more ebooks and Kindle devices. Maybe he thinks he needs that proprietary data as a comparative advantage for his own publishing house[1]. However, it seems unrealistic to think many major authors would jump to Amazon Publishing because amazon has better analytics.
It's a good thing that most books worth reading are "old". Time is a signal, so I would consider this a feature.
$10/month does seem high for most people. That's at least 10 Kindle or used book purchases--including bestsellers. That's about what I read (excluding books that I want in physical form).
And you can talk employers into buying a site license for Safari, rather than having to get all your business directly from consumers.
It's nothing at all like a Netflix for books! Limited selections that make Netflix's streaming library look vast, tight restrictions on the number of "digital copies" that can be lent out at once, leading to months-long waitlists for popular titles, and lastly, the one thing Netflix abolished at the outset, due dates.
Public libraries are a great treasure, but they are emphatically not a "Netflix for books."
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&tl=en&u=h...
It's like Steam early access for books. Is there something like that in english-speaking internet?
My parents are in their late 70s, they both use a Kindle Paperwhite, and they figured out on their own that US Public Libraries allow you to digitally check out books to your Kindle for FREE.
I had no idea of this, yet my 70+ year old parent figured it out ... and you don't even need to go into the physical library, it's all down over the web or via an app.
Which is why I suspect most companies have not tried this "Netflix for books" business because it already exist for FREE and it's called the US Public Library.
My wife uses the library for audio books on CDs, consuming several a month. I spend a little money at Audible and have a more convenient experience.
That said, I really like my local library not only as a source of physical books, but also because of talks and other events.
Quick disclaimer: I am a librarian.
Personally, I can afford these things, so I feel bad taking resources from those who can't. I font mind paying for this kind of service and leaving the library to those who can't, the same way I don't go to the library to use the internet. I have a 50mbps connection at home.
In terms of the company, I have to wonder whether or not a number of the subscriptions are paid for but never used. I could see this falling in line with gym meberships, where you're paying for something you feel like you should be doing, and canceling just admits defeat.
Given that Netflix's catalog has a reputation for providing frequently underwhelming selection, ouch.
Oyster, on the other hand, just doesn't have the collection to start with. It has a bunch of books that are either public domain (therefore free through many services) or not incredibly well known (which is fine, but hard to find things to read when people tend to already have so many items on their "to read" list). Once again, this was only my experience with the product.