Already in partnership with Smashwords, as detailed previously in TeleRead, unlimited ebook subscription service Oyster has now teamed up with global ebook distribution ePubDirect to add titles disseminated through ePubDirect to its existing roster of 100,000 titles.
“ePubDirect work continuously to add the most relevant retailers to our eBook Distribution service, and we are very excited to be able to add Oyster to our platform”, explained Gareth Cuddy, CEO, ePubDirect, in the press release. “Oyster’s app-based subscription model extends our publishers reach and offers our customers new discoverability and sales opportunities.”
“Supplying more 1,000 on-line retailers and over 25,500 libraries, ePubDirect’s primary objective is to simplify the process of getting publisher titles to market,” adds the release boilerplate. Exactly how far the new tieup goes towards confirming the success of the ebook subscription model, which, as Oyster claims, replicates “the Spotify and Netflix business models that have proved so popular in the music and movie industries,” remains to be seen. But the volume on the Oyster platform is becoming formidable, within the same year of its launch.
App-based, Oyster offers its titles through a mechanism not dissimilar to the Kindle or Nook ebook readers. It’ll also be interesting to see how these existing ebook platforms move if Oyster succeeds in presenting a serious new alternative distribution channel. Ebook subscription packages on Kindle? Maybe.
