The battle for “the best way to read books”, at least digitally, is heating up even more as Oyster, an emerging rival for Amazon, iBooks, Google Play Books and its like, has announced that you will now be able to purchase ebooks from them through their newly launched ebook store. So not only can you subscribe monthly and read unlimited books from their library, you can now also purchase ebooks should you wish to own them permanently.
It has been nicknamed the “Netflix for ebooks” because of its business model, where you just pay a monthly fee and you get to read all the books that you want. But now, you also have the ability to buy these ebooks, and even those that are not in the subscription program. The newly-launched website and app contains “virtually every book” that you can think of, including those from the big 5: Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, and Simon & Schuster.
The ebook store is housed within your reading app and also in a separate website, if you’re browsing from your desktop. There are also 43 new categories so it makes it easier for you to browse through the redesigned Explore tab. You can also toggle through which books are included in the subscription service and which are just for sale. As part of this brand new life for Oyster, they’re giving away three of their best books to a lucky winner. Tag a photo of yourself on Instagram, and show where is your favorite place to read, and use the #whereiread hashtag. You can win Open City by Teju Cole, Becoming Steve Jobs by Rick Tetzeli and Brent Schlender, and the uber popular The Girl On A Train by Paula Hawkins
The subscription service is now called Oyster Unlimited (formerly just Oyster) and will have the same monthly fee of $9.95. Not all the books that are for sale on the site and the newly-updated app will be part of the subscription service, but all the books that you can read for free when you subscribe can be bought from the e-store.
SOURCE: Oyster
