Oyster: What Does It Have to Offer to the Romance Reader?

Last week I learned about Oyster, a site that has been dubbed “Netflix for Books”. My first impression: Interesting.

Here are the details:

  • For $9.95/month, members get unlimited access to over 100,000 titles.
  • It’s currently available via invitation only. You can request an invite here. (I requested an invite on 9/7 and received it yesterday (9/9) so the wait wasn’t too long.)
  • It’s only available for the iPhone and iPod Touch right now but are said to be working on an iPad version. (For the record, I am able to use the iPhone app on my iPad Mini.)
  • Oyster is only available in the United States. In regards to expanding beyond the United States, Oyster says “Book rights are regional and right now we are focused on building a best-in-class offering for the U.S. market. We don’t have a timetable for international expansion, but we are committed to growing Oyster and making it universally accessible over time.”

 

Dear Author recently did a post on the Oyster app, which I recommend reading. Also, I thought Rie from Mission to Read brought up an interesting advantage that Oyster may have in the fight against ebook piracy. Since the ebooks Oyster offers to its subscription members are only readable in the Oyster app, there’s no downloading ebooks, which could help fight against ebook piracy. This could entice publishers and make them feel more comfortable in allowing their titles to participate in Oyster’s subscription service.

The two big questions for me are: (1) How many more publishers will jump on board, and how many of their titles will they allow in Oyster’s catalog, and (2) What does their romance selection look like? While only time will tell in regards to the first question, I can shed some light on the second question. When I clicked on the link in my Oyster invite email, it directed me to their website where I was to select 5 books to start off with. And these are the romance titles I was able to choose from:

Oyster Romance Selection

Oyster Romance Selection

Oyster Romance Selection

 

That’s 72 romance titles, though I am not entirely sure whether or not that is indeed Oyster’s entire romance collection. I did not go forward with the membership as it does not prove beneficial for me at this point in time. That, of course, can certainly change, depending upon how many and which publishers jump on board with the Oyster subscription system. I do find the price point to be enticing, considering the average book price hovers in right around $10. So to have unlimited access to a library of 100,000+ ebooks, so as long at there are books available that I want to read, sounds like a good deal for someone who reads 2+ books a month.

 

I want to know what you think of Oyster’s ebook subscription service. What do you think of their price point of $9.95/month? What do you think of the selection of romance titles Oyster currently has available? How likely are you to buy a subscription membership, at this point in time or in the future?

About Brianna: Supermom by day, naughty reader by night. Addicted to chocolate, Twitter, her iPad, her Kindle, and 99¢ Kindle deals. You can follow Brianna on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, and Instagram.

9 comments:

  1. It's definitely an interesting idea. I'm not sure about the price though since it's essentially just borrowing the books which I could do for free at the library or on my Nook Lend Me feature. Maybe if they added audio books it would be more appealing to me personally. I wasn't aware of this though so thanks for this post that brought it to my attention! I definitely want to find out more about it.

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    1. I wonder if publishers who do not currently have their ebook titles available via Overdrive (for libraries) would be more open to having their ebook titles on Oyster since with Oyster there is no downloading involved.

      Good suggestion about adding audio books. I wonder if Oyster has considered that option? Is there a subscription type service for audio books now? I believe with Audible you pay per audio book; is that the case?

      There isn't an abundance of ebooks available thru Amazon's Kindle lendable program or B&N Nook Lend Me. There's a void to fill and hopefully Oyster can fill that void. But with their current selection of ebooks available, I'm going to wait and see.

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    2. I agree about paying to "rent" a book. I can do that free from my library as well. They have a huge selection of PNR/UF books I read. But I'll keep an eye out on this service to see how it changes.

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  2. I love the idea and the price but 1) I'm an Android only (Apple=evil empire) and 2) 72 books won't last me 3 months. They'd have to get romance publishers front and back lists for it to be worth it to me. Love the concept though!

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    1. Oyster is alienating its clientele by not having a Droid app. iOS isn't the only app out there and Droid is growing.

      It'll be interesting to see which publishers jump on board with Oyster. And I agree; I'd like to see some back lists on there.

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  3. I am lucky that my local library has a large digital catalog that is romance reader friendly so Oyster would not be for me. I can see the benefit for others that do not have digital borrowing as an option.

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    1. I'm like you in that my library has a great selection of romance ebooks to borrow. I haven't done a comparison to see which books are available on Oyster that are not available through my library. But as you mentioned, there are readers whose libraries don't have a great romance selection, so Oyster could prove valuable to them.

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  4. I saw this on the Smashwords blog. Apparently they will be a publisher on Oyster, so a lot of self published works will be available there. That should boost the romance section considerably.

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    1. Good to know that self-published works will be available on Oyster!

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