Unlimited Edition, which is why the Spotify of books could fail – Panorama

Tags: Amazon Kindle kindle unlimited

Fabio Deotto

The news was not expected, but wanting was to be expected. Amazon is launching a service called Kindle Unlimited , which will allow users to subscribe to Amazon a monthly subscription to the Kindle library , and have free access to 650,000 ebook titles including and audiobooks .

The cost is the same as a premium subscription to Spotify: $ 9.99 per month , regardless of the amount of securities that decide to read. The idea is clearly to launch yet another critical blow to competitors of any kind, from simple booksellers to big chains like Barnes & Nobles. To understand how serious this threat is enough to consider that it is enough that a rumor leaked out, and all are already ready for the funeral, the publishing world.

Quiet, reason about what a point at a time.

If the Internet, broadband, peer-to-peer and streaming services have not killed the ‘ music industry certainly have distorted, so that the current situation it is not even remotely comparable to that of ten years ago. For the ‘ publishing industry , things did not go the same way, because it’s true, there are the ebook , you surely are changing the scenario publishing world, but they represent a mode of use of editorial content radically different, to the point that many people still prefer to buy paper books, and in any case are not so many users who download content illegally publishing.

Those who have already dubbed as Unlimited Edition the Netflix of books do not realize that while a user spends about two hours each day watching television content, devotes much less time to read, considering that is an American between the ages of 24 and 35 , read on average 6 minutes per day for . It is also true that Kindle users tend to spend more money on books of the average reader of paper books, whereas Amazon and encompasses 65% of the U.S. ebook market, it is not difficult to imagine that many Kindle users agree to pay a monthly handout to read what they want.

Sure, it’s hard to imagine that such an offer entice people to read more. If you listen to a video or music content requires a time of around 2 hours, read a book often takes more time and more concentration. Here’s an example: I do not know about you, but when I buy a novel , even if the first few pages do not excite me, I decide to go ahead with the reading; I mean, I’ve spent some money, and I can not afford to jump from one book to another , looking for what he can get me hooked from the very first lines. With Kindle Unlimited things would be different. If I know I can read any book, it is more likely that if one is giving me trouble decides to switch to another, and then another, consuming dozens of incipit often without giving the novel the time to show its true value. In this regard, one of the possible risks of a future spread of this publishing model, is that some publishers are tempted to select the books (even more than now) solely on the basis of usability Immediate .

But do not despair, you fine readers. Why such an ambush to succeed, Amazon must first collect the okay of the famous Big 5 , ie the five most powerful media groups in the United States, who alone are responsible for two thirds of the books published . And, unless she can extract from its deep cylinder a brilliant solution, hardly Hachette and Harper-Collins voluntarily decide to lay your head on the scaffold.