Amazon has unveiled a new e-book subscription service, but the titles that are missing from the service have raised some eyebrows. For $10 a month, the new digital subscription service, dubbed Kindle Unlimited, allows subscribers to download unlimited e-books and digital audiobooks to their device from a library of over 600,000 titles. The service includes many blockbuster series, including “The Hunger Games” and “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.” Amazon also has a vast audiobook library, including more than 2,000 digital audio titles in Kindle Unlimited.
However, none of the five biggest publishers has books available through the service. These include HarperCollins, Hachette, Penguin Random House, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster. Noticeably absent were some popular titles such as Laura Hillenbrand’s “Unbroken” and Veronica Roth’s “Divergent.” Subscribers may also find that they can download some titles but not others by the same authors because many authors publish with more than one house.
The new e-book subscription service has been the subject of speculation for months. The relationship between the online retailer and the major publishers has been strained in recent months due to ongoing negotiations and litigation. Publishers do not appreciate Amazon’s tough negotiating tactics and Hachette has been engaged in a lengthy public standoff with the company over e-book sales.
E-book sales is currently a crowded market. There are other companies that are currently providing similar services with similar pricing structures and comparable libraries. With so many similar services, the defining feature may be the books that are available. One competitor, Scribd, has a subscription service that includes the works of 900 publishers, including Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins and Wiley.
