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Oyster is launching an e-book store

wired.com

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Re: Oyster is launching an e-book store

#41

Post by mortenjorck »

I'm seeing lots of threads here making the facile "you mean the public library?" comparison, but have any of you ever actually tried using the "digital lending" features at your local library?

It's nothing at all like a Netflix for books! Limited selections that make Netflix's streaming library look vast, tight restrictions on the number of "digital copies" that can be lent out at once, leading to months-long waitlists for popular titles, and lastly, the one thing Netflix abolished at the outset, due dates.

Public libraries are a great treasure, but they are emphatically not a "Netflix for books."

Re: Oyster is launching an e-book store

#42

Post by jasode »

tw04 wrote: post #34

"The Netflix for books" - you mean the public library? I'm astounded how few young people seem to have any clue what their libraries offer. FFS, our local library lets you "borrow" e-books and audiobooks online, you never have to set foot in the building.

> >FFS, our local library lets you "borrow" e-books and audiobooks online,

The smug overconfidence ("ffs"?) of your reply tells me that many who are spreading the good word about public libraries are overestating their offerings. (But then again, others are ignorant that ebooks exist at public libraries so maybe all of the blind spots from both sides evens out.)

The caveat you're leaving out is that the public libraries have a limited ebook catalog.

I'll use Atlanta GA public libary as an example. It's a major city with a decent sized library.

Look at the Michael Chabon ebooks available from their public library:

http://afpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/default/search/results?qu=c...

The public library certain has all of his books in hardcopy format but for ebooks, it's just 2 titles. Compare with the 13 titles on Oyster:

https://www.oysterbooks.com/author/NakTfeyKUXxFcvzHC2JKFD

Again, look at another popular book, "The Goldfinch":

http://afpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/default/search/results?qu=T...

There is no ebook available at all from Atlanta's library. But Oyster has it:

https://www.oysterbooks.com/book/Kf4mghNUTfnJSiJS758h5V/the-...

The public library works great for those who don't have a specific reading list and would be satisified with "whatever" limited selection they happen to have. (Yes, you can request your public library to buy a new book but that's a separate administrative step and their committee has to review it before adding it to the budget.)

To summarize the disadvantages of ebooks at public libraries mentioned by others:

-- limited selection of titles

-- of the titles the library actually has in the collection, there is a cap on # of simultaneous checkouts from the "virtual inventory". This will result in a wait list for an ebook if it's a popular title

-- the ebooks have a "due date" and the DRM of the ebook will enforce that

-- some libraries only offer DRM epub formats that are not readable on Kindle (unless the user is tech savvy with 3rd party conversion software)

Re: Oyster is launching an e-book store

#43

Post by guelo »

mklim wrote: post #16
jasode wrote: post #7

Speaking as someone who is not familiar with Oyster… The journalist (Davey Alba) has left out some critical context to drive home the significance of Oyster’s foray into "ebook retail". After doing some research, here’s the part that the Wired article doesn’t make explicit: Yes, the Oyster subscription service is has titles from "all 5 big publishers" and yes, it is "unlimited" but the catch is that the content is mo…

Adding to this, from going through their website, it's not as simple as "old" books are free and "new" books are a premium. I did a cursory look through their catalog and it looks like any book that is still selling well and under copyright has a price on top of the subscription fee. The DaVinci Code came out 12 years ago and is still $10 on top of a subscription, Storm Front (15 years old) is still $10 as well, A Ga…

No, it's pretty much like Netflix. Hollywood only lets Netflix have the stuff nobody is interested in. They do not have anything from a year ago.

Re: Oyster is launching an e-book store

#44

Post by stinkytaco »

jasode wrote: post #42
tw04 wrote: post #34

"The Netflix for books" - you mean the public library? I'm astounded how few young people seem to have any clue what their libraries offer. FFS, our local library lets you "borrow" e-books and audiobooks online, you never have to set foot in the building.

> >FFS, our local library lets you "borrow" e-books and audiobooks online, The smug overconfidence ("ffs"?) of your reply tells me that many who are spreading the good word about public libraries are overestating their offerings. (But then again, others are ignorant that ebooks exist at public libraries so maybe all of the blind spots from both sides evens out.) The caveat you're leaving out is that the public librar…

You can request a title and more and more libraries are leaning on patron driven acquisition (PDA) for collection development. The library I am employed at buys almost everything that comes in via recommendation.

That said, limited availability is a much more complicated problem than budgeting or selection. With print books there's a very well established workflow and discount model. Wholesalers who sell to libraries provide steep (up to 40%) discounts and a very polished workflow for selecting titles (we have standing orders for best-sellers, top authors, big series, etc, that save us hours of work). Ebook vendors don't offer discounts because publishers control prices and the selection model is not nearly as polished.

Additionally, all major publishers have some limitation on their ebooks. For some vendors we pay up to 3x the cost of a retail hardcover and for others we are limited on the number of times the title can check out (26 or 52 times, depending on the vendor). Still others simply sell on a 1 or 5 year lease model. Libraries are still trying to adjust their budget models and workflows to fir these new limitations we've never had to deal with before.

So yes, I love libraries, but it's not nearly as simple as "your library has ebooks" and that's a sad state.

Re: Oyster is launching an e-book store

#45

Post by bduerst »

joshuapants wrote: post #36
tw04 wrote: post #34

"The Netflix for books" - you mean the public library? I'm astounded how few young people seem to have any clue what their libraries offer. FFS, our local library lets you "borrow" e-books and audiobooks online, you never have to set foot in the building.

I'm a big fan of my local library, unfortunately their ebook system is very annoying. They've partnered with some service that only allows you to access books through an iOS app (so I can't read on e-ink) and it seems that each book is just a pdf delivered to the app, so you can't change font size or the way the words flow. On top of that, if they even have the book you want you often have to wait several weeks befor…

That could be a manufacturer problem - i.e. Amazon being uncooperative with allowing kindle users to read books from sources other than the kindle store.

If you can get an epub or mobi version of the book you borrowed, you can use Calibre [1] to put it on your e-ink device. You can also email books to your kindle, but I've had mixed success with that.

[1] http://calibre-ebook.com/

Re: Oyster is launching an e-book store

#46

Post by joshuapants »

bduerst wrote: post #45
joshuapants wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a big fan of my local library, unfortunately their ebook system is very annoying. They've partnered with some service that only allows you to access books through an iOS app (so I can't read on e-ink) and it seems that each book is just a pdf delivered to the app, so you can't change font size or the way the words flow. On top of that, if they even have the book you want you often have to wait several weeks befor…

That could be a manufacturer problem - i.e. Amazon being uncooperative with allowing kindle users to read books from sources other than the kindle store. If you can get an epub or mobi version of the book you borrowed, you can use Calibre [1] to put it on your e-ink device. You can also email books to your kindle, but I've had mixed success with that. [1] http://calibre-ebook.com/

Unfortunately, on this end it's entirely a software issue. No way to get anything downloaded except through the app. I wonder if I had a jailbroken iPad if I could somehow extract the PDFs it downloads, but even then it wouldn't be a pleasant experience on the Kindle.

I do like Calibre, which I've used to get Project Gutenberg books among others onto it.

Re: Oyster is launching an e-book store

#47

Post by m3talridl3y »

HaloZero wrote: post #35
tw04 wrote: post #34

"The Netflix for books" - you mean the public library? I'm astounded how few young people seem to have any clue what their libraries offer. FFS, our local library lets you "borrow" e-books and audiobooks online, you never have to set foot in the building.

Libraries (at least in the US) have an artificial cap on the # of books they have. Which means it doesn't satisfy that "I want to read this now" craving that Netflix has. A popular book can have a multi-week wait in the SF public library.

What do you mean by limit? Shelf space?

Re: Oyster is launching an e-book store

#48

Post by tomjen3 »

ghaff wrote: post #27
tomjen3 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems to me to ruin any point of Oyster. 10 usd/month is already redicously expensive given that most books are less than that as a kindle book and that most readers doesn't read a book a month (most people don't read a book at all after HS, but they aren't the target market). To then charge full retail price on top of that for books one would actually want. What are they thinking?

I can't find the reference, but a few years ago, I remember Tim O'Reilly making some point around book pricing to the effect that time was ultimately the limiting factor for book consumption. In other words, you can drop the price to zero and most people will still consume a relatively limited number of books. (Of course, O'Reilly has a subscription service themselves but that's arguably a bit different because most…

I think he is right about that for books you want to read through. It would certainly be worth paying more for a cross library subscription that would allow you to quickly look up things in a lot of different books - but that only works for non-fiction.

Re: Oyster is launching an e-book store

#49

Post by Thrymr »

m3talridl3y wrote: post #47
HaloZero wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Libraries (at least in the US) have an artificial cap on the # of books they have. Which means it doesn't satisfy that "I want to read this now" craving that Netflix has. A popular book can have a multi-week wait in the SF public library.

What do you mean by limit? Shelf space?

The libraries have a license for a particular number of copies of each title that can be checked out at one time. They pay for this license, at high rates for popular books (more than hardcovers).

Re: Oyster is launching an e-book store

#50

Post by tomjen3 »

stinkytaco wrote: post #44
jasode wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> >FFS, our local library lets you "borrow" e-books and audiobooks online, The smug overconfidence ("ffs"?) of your reply tells me that many who are spreading the good word about public libraries are overestating their offerings. (But then again, others are ignorant that ebooks exist at public libraries so maybe all of the blind spots from both sides evens out.) The caveat you're leaving out is that the public librar…

You can request a title and more and more libraries are leaning on patron driven acquisition (PDA) for collection development. The library I am employed at buys almost everything that comes in via recommendation. That said, limited availability is a much more complicated problem than budgeting or selection. With print books there's a very well established workflow and discount model. Wholesalers who sell to libraries…

Why would publishers offer libraries discounts? If anything one would assume they either wouldn't sell you their new books at all or would at a minimum charge you through the nose. After all your are a competitor.

I get it for older books, that makes sense, since at that point most of the books would stop selling and be worth more as a means to get readers to buy the next in the series.

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