July 18, 2014: Amazon in its effort to expand its services and make it more attractive to users announced the roll out of a new subscription service which allows the users to access unlimited electronic books and audio books for USD 9.99 a month. Amazon is not the first company to offer this type of monthly service. Oyster offers 500,000 books for $9.95 a month. Scribd offers a service for $8.99 a month for access to 400,000 books. Both Oyster and Scribd offer HarperCollins books, among other publishers.
This new offering comes close on the heels of Amazon launching a video streaming box and grocery delivery service. The company also recently unveiled it plans for a smartphone and expanded its Sunday delivery service.
This Kindle Unlimited service will allow users to read more than 600,000 titles. This service is for anyone with a Kindle device or app who wants to subscribe. The users can also access about 2,000 audio books from Audible with Whispersync for Voice. This would allow the users to switch between reading and listening to books.
Amazon launched this service by offering a 30 day trial to attract customers. Titles such as “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” and audio books like “Water for Elephants” would be available for customers. This move of Amazon is seen as an effort to add more services to its Prime loyalty program. Customers who subscribe to this service will get a free three-month membership to the broader Audible service as well, which has 150,000 titles.
