Online bookseller Amazon has launched a “Netflix for books” — an all-you-can-read service that allows you to download books for the price of a monthly fee.
The move could upend the bookselling industry, which is already struggling with store closures and bankruptcies as ebooks and online sales replace brick-and-mortar bookstores.
But for the time being, the service is not available in Canada.
Typically, Amazon’s unique products and services take a few years to reach north of the border. That was the case with the Kindle e-reader, as well as Amazon’s online e-reader bookstore and its “Prime” two-day delivery service.
Amazon subscribers in the U.S. will be able to purchase access to Kindle Unlimited, as the service is called, for $9.99 U.S. per month. The service will offer some 600,000 titles, including bestsellers like “The Hunger Games” and “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.” Subscribers will have unlimited access.
Not every publisher has signed up the arrangement. HarperCollins and Simon and Schuster confirmed to AP they are not part of the service, while Penguin Random House didn’t comment. Neither did Hachette, the publishing house with which Amazonin a public dispute over royalties.
Besides potentially challenging publishers’ business models, Amazon’s move puts pressure on existing paid e-book subscription services such as Oyster and Scribd.
— With files from the Associated Press
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