In recent months, streaming reading services have been the protagonists of the publishing world, eReader world, library world ...In general, everything related to Reading. It stops us less, since it offers the same as a library but in a faster way and without having to queue or wait for a book. On the other hand, the price of this service is relatively low and affordable, an important point since otherwise, such a success would not have existed, I think.
For all this we have wanted to do a small comparison of the services that we can find when wanting to hire a "flat rate for ebooks". A comparison that tries to collect the most important points so that any reader can decide if they are interested in buying it or not and that they are also available in Spain or it is easy to acquire from Spain. But first, for the most clueless I am going to tell you something about the birth of these services or these «Flat rates for ebooks«.
How the «Flat Rates for ebooks» started
This phenomenon was born in Spain, through the company 24 Symbols, a company that wanted to bring the Spotify business model to the publishing world. Although it is not a widely used service, it is a very popular service that crossed our borders and was an example for many other companies, such as Oyster or Skoobe. This fame of 24 Symbols made the big companies in Spain together with the big publishers move to consolidate an alternative of Hispanic origin, this is how Nubico was born, a company that in addition to offering ebooks via streaming, incorporates the possibility of be able to buy them through your store.
Almost at the same time that Nubico, in the United States, a similar service was being prepared, Oyster, a platform that, unlike the Spanish, managed to contact the large publishers worldwide and hence had a large catalog of ebooks, more than 500.000 copies. The peculiarity of Oyster did not lie in its price but in its platform. Until recently Oyster it only worked for iOS platform so those who used Android on their tablets could not enjoy this service.
This hole was seen by the Scribd company, which until now functioned as a large warehouse to publish and store our documents. So Scribd decided to move to the world of ebooks through this service while maintaining its old document storage service, something that made Scribd unusual.
Given all this and taking into account its fondness for offering services to its customers, Amazon decided to create a streaming reading service, while respecting the rules of the other "Flat rates for ebooks". Thus was born Kindle Unlimited, a service that until recently was only in the United States but is fleetingly being taken to other countries such as Spain.
| Price | Catalog Size | Offline reading | Platforms available | Available for eReader | Multi-device | Ebook limit | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 symbols | $9 | 200.0000 e-books | Si | Android/iOS/PC | Si | Si | No | |
| Nubic | 8'9 euros | 10.000 e-books | Si | Android/iOS/PC | Si | Si | No | |
| Oyster | 7'20 euros | 500.000 e-books | Si | Android / iOS / WebApp | No | No | No | |
| Scribd | 7'20 euros | 500.000 e-books | Si | Android/iOS/PC | No | No | No | |
| Skoobe | 9'99 euros | 50.000 e-books | Si | Android/iOS | Si | Si | No | |
| Kindle unlimited | 9'99 euros | 700.000 e-books | Si | Android/iOS/PC | Si | Si | No |
Conclusions
How can you see, the differences between these flat rates for ebooks they are minimal. Surely many of you will tell me that this is wrong or incomplete in some respects, well you are right. For Kindle Unlimited, we have put that it is not multi-device because It depends on the user account, it can work on 6 devices as long as you have the account registered on that device. On the other hand, in other "Flat Rates for ebooks" you can have an account with several devices, the result is the same in both cases but the difference is substantial.
Regarding the platforms, we have considered that Android and Kindle Fire is the same, so we have omitted from all flat rates for ebooks the platform «Kindle Fire«, Then the« Web App »platform refers to the applications through the browser while the« PC »platform refers to the application itself for Windows or Mac or Linux not for the browser.
Although many of you think that with these clarifications and looking at the comparison, there is a clear winner, Kindle Unlimited, I would recommend that you try all the flat rates of ebooks. Currently all flat rates for ebooks offer a free trial period that comes in handy in these cases of uncertainty. Because it is clear that Kindle Unlimited is the one with the most ebooks of all the flat rates of ebooks, but if you cannot read English, half of the catalog is useless. Something similar happens with Scribd and Oyster, services that if you cannot read in English, their catalog is very small.
Another point that I would recommend that you look at is the multi-device. If there are several readers in your family, in some flat rates for ebooks, you should divide the price between the supported devices, that is, if there are three readers in your family, you will have to divide the price by three, as in the case of Nubico the price per reader would not reach 3 euros compared to the 10 euros that Kindle Unlimited is worth. As you can see, there is no clear winner, but there is also no clear loser, it depends on the tastes and needs of each one, however, all this indicates that the «Flat rates for ebooks »Will be the future.