Will Subscription e-Book Sites Continue to be Viable in 2015?

[Lin2412]

Michael Kozlowski shares in this article why he suspects e-book subscription sites is a deteriorating business. (I don't wholly agree though)

One of the big trends of 2014 was the emergence of subscription services, where you pay a monthly fee and get access to thousands of e-books. Amazon Kindle Unlimited, Oyster, Entitle and Scribd have all gained the support of indie authors and publishers. How viable are their business models and will they continue to grow in 2015, or disappear entirely.

All of these subscription sites never talk about their data and metrics, in terms of how much revenue they gain and or how many paid subscriptions they have. I do know from talking with many industry experts, is none of them, save Amazon is actually making enough money to stay operational. Instead, they are caught in a loop of constantly raiding venture capital in order to stay afloat. It leads me to belive that the average reader is happier buying books, one by one, than having access to an incomprehensible amount. It is far easier from a readers prospective to buy the titles that just came out, than to browse a huge selection of older titles via Scribd and Oyster.
Will these sites continue to be viable in 2015? I have a feeling at least one of these companies will go out of business. The public has not accepted this business model yet and major publishers do not distribute new titles to their platforms, which in turn does not appeal to your the average reader.

[Phogg]

I reread books that I like.
Even books I liked as a kid.


I do not trust online data to remain available and so even if they have some material that might fall within my interests I don't use subscription sites.

[Lynx-lynx]

Am I right in thinking that one can't read any of the books from those various library lending companies on their ereader?

Is it the case that one must borrow them using an app or read on their PC from the cloud?

On another note I haven't bothered with joining any of them because I like to buy now and then choose when I'll read the book - and that might be sooner or later.

Plus my free public library satisfies my needs for ebook borrowing that can be used on my ereder.

[pwalker8]

I suspect that subscription services appeal to people who don't re-read books, but do read a lot of books, i.e. the same people who frequent those used book stores where you can buy a book, read it and then sell it back at half what you paid for it. However, to be viable you need enough books that people want to read and enough new books. Otherwise, you start losing customers after they have read all the books they are interested in.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

Am I right in thinking that one can't read any of the books from those various library lending companies on their ereader?

Is it the case that one must borrow them using an app or read on their PC from the cloud?

.

Kindle Unlimited is the only one that lets you use an eink device. I don't know about Oyster, but Scribd uses scrambled text with a special unscrambling font.

[fjtorres]

I've seen no data that suggests any of them is long-term viable.
Doesn't mean it doesn't exist but so far nobody is bragging about number of users or growth rate. It has been suggested they are profitable but only because a lot of their members don't actually use their services. (The claim I saw said less than 1 book a month on average.)
Kinda like gym club memberships.
That might be viable in the short term. Long term?
I dunno.

None of them appeals to me, although Juli Monroe of Teleread had this to say back in august:

http://www.teleread.com/scribd/almos...anged-reading/

[Josieb1]

For me subscription services would need to include new releases and not just self published, I need some of the independant publishers in it that I currently buy from, right now only 1 author I read is in KU and I have all her books anyway.

[DuckieTigger]

I don’t think the e-reading market can sustain four different companies doing the exact same thing.

What does the amount of subscription service providers have to do with them being sustainable? It is called competition. There is lots of companies doing the exact same which are sustainable and have been for a long time. Throwing more subscribers at the service is not going to help with sustainability if those new subscribers on average cost more money than they pay in. The other way to raise more money would be through raising the price of the subscription. By doing that there will be a great chance that subscribers that create income (read less than what they pay) will jump ship. Prices have to be raised again. Lower the payout per read, and publishers will jump ship resulting in less content which will make subscribers jump ship.

A service that has unlimited reads per month including a fixed payout per read (e.g. 60% of list) without any other benefits may never be sustainable. Add perks to it that attracts subscribers that are not likely to "over-borrow" and it may work. A combination of unlimited borrows and credits to purchase (Scribd type of subscription combined with Entitle type of subscription) might possibly attract enough subscribers that don't over-borrow AND use up every credit per month.

[robko]

Originally Posted by Phogg

I reread books that I like.
Even books I liked as a kid.

THIS! And the fact that these services really only work for people who read a lot of books in a month. I read daily, but I'm not as fast as the people that go through 4-5-10-20 books a month. I don't thing there is a big enough number of those people to sustain these services. A paper book used bookstore has a bigger market because they pick up those who might only buy periodically along with the voracious readers. This is a narrower market (e-book) in a small market (voracious readers) and apparently with a (relatively speaking) narrow selection.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Scribd uses scrambled text with a special unscrambling font.

A Caesar cipher like rot13, but font based? Or something more complicated?

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by robko

THIS! And the fact that these services really only work for people who read a lot of books in a month. I read daily, but I'm not as fast as the people that go through 4-5-10-20 books a month. I don't thing there is a big enough number of those people to sustain these services. A paper book used bookstore has a bigger market because they pick up those who might only buy periodically along with the voracious readers. This is a narrower market (e-book) in a small market (voracious readers) and apparently with a (relatively speaking) narrow selection.

Seems to me that for someone who averages just a book or two a month and doesn't care about owning and/or rereading, the subscription model would make a lot of sense. I don't think that level of reading is unusual, especially if you think of a family sharing an account.

I could see the subscription model working very well, depending mostly on the content offered and on the ability to use one's preferred device.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Seems to me that for someone who averages just a book or two a month and doesn't care about owning and/or rereading, the subscription model would make a lot of sense. I don't think that level of reading is unusual, especially if you think of a family sharing an account.

I could see the subscription model working very well, depending mostly on the content offered and on the ability to use one's preferred device.

Even if the book is $2.99? I wouldn't pay $10/mos to read just one or two books.

[Atunah]

I hope they stick around, I love the idea and right now I love Scribd. I had KU also, but cancelled that for lack of content. Scribd has many of the publishers and authors I like to read. Not brand new releases, but I see stuff a couple of years back. Considering that everything is in some sort of series, I usually have to read the back list first with most new releases anyway. I am OCD with reading in order, even if its a very faint connection. I still have to read book 1 first.

I read a lot, I use a subscription, I use the library (ebooks) and I still buy books and new releases. I break even pretty much and then some if I read 4 books a month with Scribd. Then I have my already owned books, library stuff, stuff that just comes up because of reasons, etc.

I think voracious type readers have always had many ways to get their book. I don't think its ever just one or the other.

I wish I could read Scribd on e-ink, but my Fire 6 an Nexus do pretty well with that. I would have loved KU if it had all the publishers Scribd managed to get. But oh well. I go where the content is. I want to read what I want to read, not read stuff I wouldn't normally read and just do now to break even on the monthly fee.

I know Scribd just signed a large publisher for a year contract, so I assume they are good for at least another year.

[rixte]

It definitely seems a weird conclusion - first of all because the four companies are obviously NOT doing things the same way (Oyster and Scribd seem to be, but Kindle Unlimited and Entitle don't) but also because 'new service not yet profitable' isn't the same thing as 'formerly profitable service unable to maintain business'.

Having said that, I like Scribd's selection but hate their font and lack of customization and, of course, being forced to read on an app or browser and will cancel my 30 day free trial before it goes paid.

I like Kindle Unlimited's ability to be read in eink with all that entails (and it's actually fine for rereads, because unlike the lending to a friend program, you can borrow a book multiple times) but the selection is relatively poor and I only subbed for 2 months. This isn't helped by the fact that browsing for eligible books is a huge pain and trying to figure out what beyond the highlighted high-profile books were available through it was frustrating. If their catalogue increases, I'd consider it again.

[rixte]

Oh, and a friend of mine with a 10 year old finds Kindle Unlimited absolutely perfect for saving the number of times per week they need to go to the library!