Scribd Launches E-Book Subscription Service

Shelf Awareness

Scribd, the document sharing site, has launched a digital book subscription service, and HarperCollins has signed as a publishing partner. For a monthly fee of $8.99, readers can access books and other written works on their iPhone, iPad, Android devices and Web browsers. According to Scribd, the majority of the HarperCollins U.S. and HarperCollins Christian backlist catalogue will be available through the service. In addition, the full HarperCollins catalogue can be purchased in the Scribd retail store.

HarperCollins CEO Brian Murray told the New York Times he was encouraged to sign on to the Netflix/Spotify-like service partly because of consumer interest in subscription models for music, television and radio. "There's been a few small pilots but they've been really small start-ups," he said. "Scribd has an opportunity to really become a player in the e-book space."

GigaOM noted that Scribd's service "actually soft-launched with participation from some small publishers this past January, but the hook for Tuesday's announcement is that Scribd has secured the bulk of 'Big 5' publisher HarperCollins' catalogue for its service." Other publishers working with Scribd include E-Reads, Kensington, Red Wheel/Weiser, Rosetta Books, Sourcebooks and Workman.

"Scribd can convert these people [80 million active users] over to the book subscriptions," Jan Johnson, publisher at Red Wheel/Weiser, told Wired. "We are all for this, and we think it will just expand our audience. People will either read a book there, on the service, or buy the book in some other way if they want to keep it in their own library--either their electronic library or their real library. Some people still read books on paper."

Oysterbooks.com, an e-book subscription venture that offers consumers access to more than 100,000 books for a monthly fee of $9.95, launched last month.