Oyster shutters its ebook service

[ebusinesstutor]

Sad to hear Oyster failed. Worried it might affect ScribeD which I do use and like. Hopefully ScribeD will continue.

I do like the Netflix model and hope that an ebook version makes it.

[hardcastle]

Originally Posted by Logseman

Google's subscription services have been underwhelming so far. This is bad news.

Google wouldn't be acquiring companies if they didn't have the intention of improving their services.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by hardcastle

Google wouldn't be acquiring companies if they didn't have the intention of improving their services.

According to the report at The Digital Reader blog, Google didn't buy the publisher contracts. So they won't be continuing the Oyster service. What they are buying is the staff and some of the plumbing tech.

http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/0...red-to-google/

[hardcastle]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

According to the report at The Digital Reader blog, Google didn't buy the publisher contracts. So they won't be continuing the Oyster service. What they are buying is the staff and some of the plumbing tech.

http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/0...red-to-google/

Which certainly sounds like Google is working on...improving their service.

I don't think Google needs publisher agreements. Whatever Google dreams up will probably differ from Oyster enough that they'd need new contracts anyway.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by hardcastle

Whatever Google dreams up will probably differ from Oyster enough that they'd need new contracts anyway.

Or no new contracts at all.
I'm with Nate on this: that Google is just looking to, yes, improve their thoroughly mediocre ebook sales site, with no parallel subscription service anywhere on their horizon.

[fjtorres]

Shatzkin's take:
http://www.idealog.com/blog/what-oys...subscriptions/

But another was to collect at least some of that VC money poured into an unlikely-to-work business model before it was exhausted. And because the publishers got to decide which books to include, they could choose backlist titles that weren’t generating much revenue anyway and which might benefit from “discovery” within the subscription service.

(Carolyn Reidy, the CEO at Simon & Schuster, tipped to this in her talk last week at the BISG Annual Meeting where she specifically mentioned the value of the discovery S&S has seen take place in the subscription platforms.)

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by ebusinesstutor

I do like the Netflix model and hope that an ebook version makes it.

Netflix has one big advantage over ebook subscriptions: they don't license their content on pay-per-view terms but rather bulk license *access* to it. That lets them control their costs which is something neither Oyster nor Scribd can claim.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Netflix has one big advantage over ebook subscriptions: they don't license their content on pay-per-view terms but rather bulk license *access* to it. That lets them control their costs which is something neither Oyster nor Scribd can claim.

I think this is the biggest reason the model failed and Netflix didn't

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Blossom

I think this is the biggest reason the model failed and Netflix didn't

In the end it comes down to the movie studios wanting Netflix to succeed so both sides could make money indefinitely and traditional publishers (as Shatzkin points out) just wanting to make a quick buck.

[fjtorres]

Just heard about this:
https://storify.com/fahrenheitpress/...-subscriptions

Worth the read.

"Lions led by donkeys."
I'll have to remember that one.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Just heard about this:
https://storify.com/fahrenheitpress/...-subscriptions

Worth the read.

"Lions led by donkeys."
I'll have to remember that one.

Interesting. Of course, he runs into the same problem they had in KU 1.0 where every story, novella and epic novel received the same payout.

He used $15 as the monthly fee, a 50% price increase.

He estimated the average subscriber would read 4 titles each month. If the actual number was 10, then the payout drops to 98 cents each. I doubt that would go over well with the big publishers ... or even the self pubbers.

[Atunah]

Why in the heck would I pay $15 to rent 4 books? And why is that thing written in twitter spurts. Horrible to read.

Both Oyster and Scribd paid to much. A rental is not a purchase. Should be lower royalties, or whatever the call it. And certainly not payout at what 10 percent read. Its why KU had to change because of all the 20 page flyers getting payout at just a couple of pages turned until the reader figured it was crap.

Reading 4 books under the subscription is the minimum for me to make it worth. At the $9-10 price that is. I always was shooting for 5-6. Otherwise its cheaper to just outright buy them, especially on sale.

I just wish some more publisher would participate in KU. For now its the one I am keeping. Well I did get a good deal on prime day so that helped a lot.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Atunah

Why in the heck would I pay $15 to rent 4 books? And why is that thing written in twitter spurts. Horrible to read.

Both Oyster and Scribd paid to much. A rental is not a purchase. Should be lower royalties, or whatever the call it. And certainly not payout at what 10 percent read. Its why KU had to change because of all the 20 page flyers getting payout at just a couple of pages turned until the reader figured it was crap.

Reading 4 books under the subscription is the minimum for me to make it worth. At the $9-10 price that is. I always was shooting for 5-6. Otherwise its cheaper to just outright buy them, especially on sale.

I just wish some more publisher would participate in KU. For now its the one I am keeping. Well I did get a good deal on prime day so that helped a lot.

They used $15 as a bogey. It was a viability study.
Given the time period, $15 wasn't unreasonable (the price of a typical hardcover).

I recently ran a KU WAG myself and as near as I can tell, 5 books at $10 is probably the breakeven point for anybody who knows their taste and can read an hour a day every day (30 hours a month). Any less and you're better off watching for sales and freebies and still get your reading in for less than $10.

As for more tradpubs getting into KU, I think the time for that is past.
The per-page payout model is anathema to tradpub.
(Too much of their income comes from books that people never finish.)

[Atunah]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

They used $15 as a bogey. It was a viability study.
Given the time period, $15 wasn't unreasonable (the price of a typical hardcover).

I recently ran a KU WAG myself and as near as I can tell, 5 books at $10 is probably the breakeven point for anybody who knows their taste and can read an hour a day every day (30 hours a month). Any less and you're better off watching for sales and freebies and still get your reading in for less than $10.

As for more tradpubs getting into KU, I think the time for that is past.
The per-page payout model is anathema to tradpub.
(Too much of their income comes from books that people never finish.)

Agree about the 5 for $10. I am pretty good if I get 4 in. But since I have a discounted 2 year sub now, its only like $6, makes me happy.

There are some trads in KU, not the big 5 no, but Kensington has titles in it, Open Road Media does, Sourcebooks has some and some of those are usually quite expensive like Georgette Heyer. There are some smaller publisher I have seen like Crimson romance and a few others I can't recall now.

I was shocked when I saw S&S come to Scribd a while back and happy when they got HQN books. They could put a lot of their back list titles in they aren't selling anyway much of. But yeah, I am not holding my breath any of the big 5 partnering with Amazon. But I guess stranger things have happened. They could do a trial run with a small number of back list and see how it goes.

I read 100's of books a year, average at 15 a month, more in a good month, little less in a bad month. But I still don't expect a subscription to fill all those slots. If I read 4-5 KU titles, I read 5 more from the library with the big publishers and then 5 purchased books. Its a combination for me.


I do agree with how publishers kind of messed this up. If they had a chance to get in years ago on such a service.

Now instead of getting paid for the pages I read if they had gone into KU, I get the books from the library. If they aren't at the library they go on a wishlist for either steep discount or just falling into the bottom of my deep TBR pit.

[mitford13]

This comment from Steven Zacharius, Kensington CEO, is interesting:

"KU is going to end up being only Amazon published titles or indie published books. So I don't think you can claim that it's built on sustainability. I know that many of our most popular books in KU are being removed because they were too expensive for them to be kept in KU when they had to pay publishers a full royalty. I would never be able to explain to an author or be able to calculate royalties due to an author if they weren't receiving the full amount normally due. It's a shame because I do think that the program did allow readers to experiment with many authors that they may have not read before. I also didn't see those sales cannibalizing the traditional purchase of the same title. Both were doing quite well. Romance is a very difficult category to have in a subscription service as I explained to Amazon, Scribd and Oyster when they all started."

So sounds like Amazon is actually removing some trad pub from KU, similar to Scribd's actions. According to Zacharius:
"Not all books yet, but a lot of the more popular titles that were being downloaded heavily..."

http://www.idealog.com/blog/what-oys...#disqus_thread