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Oyster - Netflix for books (apparently)

51K views 210 replies 64 participants last post by  dianasg 
#1 ·
#5 ·
"Today Oyster launches its iPhone platform giving users 100,000 titles, from publishers like HarperCollins, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Workman and self-publishing giant Smashwords, for $9.95 a month....

Stromberg and Van Lancker are tight lipped about how publishers or author (sic) get paid through the platform..."

Paging Mark Coker!
 
#7 ·
I just saw Mark's link to that on Twitter and read the article (now read the Forbes one too - so thank you for that.)

I'm not sure.  I'm wary about it to be honest.  I tend to see subscription services as being about making money for the service at the expense of content providers, though I confess I'm under researched in this area.  I'm actually rather surprised to see that big publishers are taking part!  Given that they seem to hate giving libraries access to ebooks, I'm amazed that they've agreed to a subscription service!  

I'll wait to hear the royalties and a bit more about how it works.  If I'm still unsure, I'll opt out until I hear from others how it's going.
 
#8 ·
dkgould said:
You mean I no longer have to sell my first born to cover my reading addiction? I can read as many books as I want? And it's not just western romances like my local library seems to stock to the exclusion of all else? Where do I sign up?
You can sign up here: https://www.oysterbooks.com/ for $9.95 a month (presumably not for UK users. :( )

Yep, it's that imminent.

Cherise Kelley said:
Paging Mark Coker!
Indeed. And apparently it's going live in only 3 weeks. Anyone with books in their premium list get entered automatically...

Sudden is not a sudden enough word to describe this. NEED MORE DETAILS!

(although this has apparently been in the works for about a year or so: http://gigaom.com/2012/10/10/can-oyster-be-the-spotify-of-books-3m-investment-says-yes/)
 
#9 ·
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#10 ·
I wonder how it works? Strange that SW is keeping the royalty piece a secret, makes me think perhaps subscribers won't be as thrilled as they say and that Oyster requested they keep it quiet until after the launch to avoid any negative publicity. Yes, feeling a bit cynical maybe.

That said, this could be interesting if you can pick and choose which books you'd like to include, such as the first in a series so you'd get the same benefit many qet with giving it away free.

 
#12 ·
Thanks for the heads-up about it being in the Channel Manager already.  I've opted out for now, but I am open to changing my mind when I find out more.
 
#13 ·
Zelah Meyer said:
Thanks for the heads-up about it being in the Channel Manager already. I've opted out for now, but I am open to changing my mind when I find out more.
You're welcome.

I, too, am alarmed that opting in is the default whenever a new distributor signs on. This is one of the reasons I read KB every day, but really we should at least be getting email notifications that give us a chance to opt out.
 
#15 ·
Hmmmm let's see 100,000 books on who knows what for $119 a year.  For that I would go with amazon prime and save $40.    I can find plenty of books in my preferred genres for much less than $10 a month.
Ok so truth be told my TBR is as tall as a couple of authors.
 
#17 ·
cinisajoy said:
Hmmmm let's see 100,000 books on who knows what for $119 a year. For that I would go with amazon prime and save $40. I can find plenty of books in my preferred genres for much less than $10 a month.
Ok so truth be told my TBR is as tall as a couple of authors.
and if Amazon let me read as many books as I wanted in one month, I would stick with prime too (or even a more reasonable number than one) and pay more for it too. But for right now, at the rate I go through books it's an expensive pastime, even with prime and a library card. This seems awesome for me anyway. But yeah, if amazon takes notice, I'd definitely stick with prime. Especially because this Oyster program seems apple product only at the moment with no plans for other platforms at the moment.
 
#18 ·
Mark, I know you're out there, so please come answer our questions! Why wait to announce the terms if you're confident that we'll be happy?

And why is the default to opt us in to things, so we actually have to act to opt out? I'd much prefer to make my own decisions on my business, but right now I'm not being given the necessary information to make that choice.
 
#23 ·
Cherise Kelley said:
Oyster is already live on the Smashwords channel manager. I just opted out my non-fiction.
GD it -- this is why I pulled most of my books from Smashwords. Going now to opt these out, give a few days to make sure it takes. UNpub the last of everything there and archive it. Default absolutely should be opt out. I have to other places I can now generate free coupons when I want to do that. Smashwords just lost the last of its utility, especially when stacked against default opt-ins.
 
#25 ·
Money issues aside.  I will not be joining Oyster because of the way they are treating authors.  It should be you have the option to opt in not contact us if you want out.
 
#26 ·
Cin - oyster isn't doing the automatic opt-in. Smashwords does that with ALL new channels and everyone who is on Smashwords should know that. The problem is we're often opted in before we're notified and there isn't a SINGLE SUBJECT email - rather it is frequently buried in with the regular newsletter and I don't want to scroll past the monthly Amazon bashing and non-scientific surveys in the newsletter to get to something that's actually relevant to my business.
 
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