Pay a monthly fee and in exchange be able to read one or more ebooks at no extra cost – what is known as The Subscription Model.  Or Ebook of the Month Clubs?

As my faithful readers will know (post on Amazon Prime), Amazon have just launched something like a subscription scheme as an addition to their Prime Membership deal, but this is very limited, both geographically (only for the USA) and in terms of content as well, only having about 5000 ebooks to choose from.

The only other version of this idea that I can bring to mind just now is a small start up in Spain, called 24 Symbols, which offers subscribers the opportunity to read on a computer or smart phone ebooks that are stored on a Cloud, and thus not downloaded onto the reader’s device.

Probably a nice idea, as far as it goes, but so far they apparently only have about 1000 ebooks on offer, all of which are from the public domain, so in other words, ebooks that you can get for yourself at no cost from sites like Gutenberg.

They are offering several schemes, free reading with advertisements, pay a monthly fee and you get the ebooks without advertisements.

Personally I don’t really see the benefit of this sort of scheme, as there is nothing in it for the big publishers, so they are not joining in with this, so the choice of ebooks remains very limited, and from the deeper levels of ebookania.

Ebook of the Month Club:

I suspect that an ebook version of Book of the Month type schemes is more likely to succeed, as it is interesting for publishers – their books get sold that way, and needs no advertising to support it, simply take the model of Book of the Month Club and replace the paper book with an ebook.. And there you have it.    A system that has proven itself over the years, infra-structure already in place, simply stop sending paper, and start sending data….

Link to 24 Symbols:  http://www.24symbols.com/

Link to Amazon’s ebook Prime: Click here

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So, subscription or Ebook of the Month, which would you prefer?

A possible new model for selling ebooks that gets rid of a lot of the problems associated with ebook publishing.

 I came across a website based in South America the other day which I am currently trying to get more precise information about, and will write about it once I have all the info in, but the basic idea behind it is perfectly clear, and really rather interesting as it may well offer a serious alternative to the current infuriating DRM and geographical limitations that are bedeviling ebooks.

The kernel of the idea is that readers can buy an ebook on line, read once and then it is removed.   In the case of this South American group, I gather the idea is for these ebooks to be read on a special App of theirs on a computer rather than on an ereader, but the principle works with both devices…

What they appear to be setting up is a system that allows one to browse their “library” for an ebook you want to read, you then select it, and pay a very small amount of money (or perhaps they will have a membership system) and download the ebook.  As soon as you have read it, it is deleted from your device, and thus no longer available for you to read again, or give away.

A world wide library in effect:

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Amazon are contemplating a subscription system for ebooks – will the  publishers go along with this?

The idea apparently is that if you pay $79 a year (how do they come up with these weird amounts?) , you will then become a member of a very non-exclusive club called Prime Users, which among other advantages will give you the right to borrow ebooks from the Kindle store for a set period of time (probably a week or two) at no extra cost.

Obviously from our point of view – at least in the short term, this is a good idea, after all I spend way more than $79 a year on ebooks, so I would very quickly  make a real saving  in my ebook budget.  Also from the point of view of Amazon, this is a good idea.  It will tie more people into their Kindle system, and thus ensure more revenue for Amazon.

Publishers not all convinced:

However, it appears that many publishers are rather less charmed with this idea, feeling that it would represent a  drop in sales of ebooks, and anyway they are apprehensive of the commanding position that Amazon already has in the book market, and fear that this idea would make Amazon even more powerful, and thus a danger to publishers who didn’t play along with any future ideas that Amazon might come up with.

Apparently Amazon have been offering publishers quite large sums of money to go along with this scheme, and that is only for their back-lists, for recent titles they are offering even more.   But it seems that this isn’t moving many publishers yet.

Is Amazon taking over the world?

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Guest writer Blake Sanders casts an eye over the current situation with public libraries and ebooks.

Read on………………………..

Local Libraries Lending eBooks

With the rising trend of eReaders, public libraries have joined the masses with new downloadable eBooks and audio books for their customers. If you have a library card and a high speed internet connection you can download an eBook at the select libraries offering this service. These eBooks can be downloaded from the comfort of your home to smartphones, iPads, computers, and many other types of devices. Generally, eBook downloads are available in MOBI, ePUB, and PDF formats. Some branches also offer a selection of eReaders for check out including Kindles, Nooks, Kobo, and Sony readers.

How it Works
The checkout process for an eBook is easy, and eBooks are available on your eReader or computer for anywhere from seven to 14 days. Renewals are not available given that libraries are only allowed one copy of each eBook at a time. After the checkout period is over, the eBook expires and automatically returns to circulation for others to enjoy. This means no more remembering to return books and no more late fees. Happily, this also cuts back on competition for checking out new novels. Mostly new, popular fiction is available for downloading, but some older, classic titles might be available as well.

Getting Familiar

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Ebookanoid and The Digital Reader are loved by librarians:

Yesterday I Googled Ebookanoid, to see what other websites say about my blog – something I do every so often as part of keeping track on how ebookanoid is viewed in the rest of the web.

I was very pleased to discover that an amazing number of libraries  in America are suggesting via their online News Letters to their members and users that they read ebookanoid regularly in order to get useful information about ereading.   Good to know that they feel I write in a manner that is useful, especially to people who may well not be all that computer literate or fully fledged techies.

Equally pleasing to me was to discover that not only ebookanoid met with their approval, but also the blog run by my friend Nate the Great (The Digital Reader) was the other blog that they recommended.   Seems to me that between Nate’s blog, which tends to be rather more technical than ebookanoid, and my blog, which is specifically aimed at a non-technical readership, we more or less cover the entire area of ereaders and ebooks.

Good to have this confirmed in this manner.

So, many thanks to all those American Librarians who are supporting what we do in this manner….. It is appreciated.

Kindle owners (at least American ones) will no longer be banned from borrowing ebooks from libraries:

In a recent press release, Amazon have announced that they have been in discussion with Overdrive( the software company whose software is the backbone of all library ebook lending) and have reached agreement on a system to allow Kindle owners to join the rest of us and borrow ebooks from the local library.

This will be launched in the USA later this year, and I very much hope in the rest of the world shortly thereafter.

It will work in exactly the same way as the current ebook borrowing system works, with a couple of very interesting additions, which I suspect will help the sales of Kindles even more.  If you borrow an ebook for your Kindle, you will be able to make annotations and so on on it, which will be stored in your account with Amazon, so that should you borrow that particular ebook again, all your notes will be available to you, as they will be should you later purchase that ebook from Amazon.

Basically, you will have all the Whispersync functions available to you that you normally have with any ebook you purchase from Amazon for your Kindle.

This will be available for all models of the Kindle ereader, not only the most recent models.

By this action, Amazon will effectively removed what was becoming a considerable block in their Kindle sales, as more and more libraries start lending ebooks to their clients, currently only in ePub format, and thus not accessible to Kindle owners.

You have to give it to Amazon, they are not prone to locking themselves out of any market that looks as if it might earn them a dollar or two.