Around twenty years ago, music became not only digital, but virtual, with the gradual disappearance of the CD as a medium. Apple’s iTunes service was one of the first to offer the ability to purchase songs one by one and download them to your iPod players. However, an even better idea quickly emerged: the company Spotify offers a monthly subscription to download millions of songs from its catalog, without limits.
It didn’t take long for the giant Amazon to offer something similar for digital books. Kindle Unlimited appeared in 2014 as a flat rate of ebooks, downloadable without limit on the brand’s Kindle e-readers. It’s a tempting idea, but for many people, those around 10 euros per month are on top of other subscriptions like Netflix or Spotify. Is a flat rate for books worth it?
E-books and reading
According to the report of the Federation of Editors’ Guilds of Spain, around two thirds of the Spanish population read at least one book every three months in their free time. The percentage of people who read daily or weekly is 52%, while 36% never read. What’s interesting is that almost 30% of the Spanish population now read books in digital format, four times more than in 2011. The usual reading devices are, in that order, e-book readers such as Amazon Kindle, computers, tablets and mobile phones.
Ebook plans have these prices for the most used services:
- Kindle Unlimited: this is the oldest service, offered at €9.99 per month. Its Audible audiobook service must be purchased separately.
- Nextory: formerly Nubico, this service from the operator Movistar offers two prices, an unlimited one at €9.99 per month and a basic one at €7.99 per month, which includes digital books and audiobooks.
- 24Symbols: offers a price with access to the entire catalog for €8.99 per month and which only offers digital books.
- Storytel: an individual rate of €8.99 per month and a family rate for up to three accounts for €15.99 per month and which includes digital books and audiobooks.
- Kobo: offers a monthly rate of €8.99 which includes digital books and audiobooks.
- Scribd: its Everand service includes digital books, audiobooks, magazines and podcasts for 10.99 euros per month or 109.99 per year.
According to the Libranda report, the average price of e-books in Spain is 7 euros. The math is simple: if you read more than two new books per month, the subscription is worth it. However, the average person’s budget in books per year in Spain is 34.6 euros, according to data from the Ministry of Culture and Sports.
The question can be seen from the other side: by purchasing a subscription to these services, we are encouraged to read more each year.
What books are included
The catalog is another deciding factor when it comes to considering a book package. Subscription platforms offer a wide selection of books, but the latest releases, titles by best-selling authors, or rarer books are generally not included. Kindle Unlimited, for example, focuses on self-published authors and content from independent publishers, while services like Scribd offer a broader range including books, audiobooks, magazines and documents.
Large publishers like Penguin Random House or Planeta are reluctant to offer their latest releases on these platforms, as this could cannibalize direct sales. This necessarily limits supply, especially for readers looking to keep up with bestsellers or very specific titles.
Device and rights management
One of the big scandals that rocked Amazon occurred when in 2009 it was confirmed that the company was removing certain e-books from its users’ Kindle devices, including titles from George Orwell and the Harry Potter saga . This drew attention to a fact: users did not own the e-book, but rather it was a service that could be accessed. This is what happens, for example, when the subscription service is terminated. The books disappear.
This same logic applies when a user of these platforms attempts to transfer an e-book to another device or download it to send to another person. In most cases, files are protected by DRM (digital rights management) technology which prevents this.
These restrictions also affect the reading device. Mobile phones, computers and tablets can use the reading applications of each platform without limitations, but the same cannot be said for e-ink e-book readers. For example, if we have a subscription to Kobo, which offers its own readers, and we want to transfer the books to an Amazon Kindle reader, we must follow complicated instructions and use external programs like Adobe Digital Editions or Calibre.
In comparison, if we stay within the walled garden of each platform, books magically appear on all our devices, readers, computers, tablets and mobile phones. Notes, highlights, and last reading point are also automatically synced, which doesn’t happen when transferring books from one platform to another.
Finally, by having access to hundreds of thousands or millions of books, you could suffer from the “paradox of choice”, a phenomenon which describes how having too many options can generate anxiety and make it difficult to make decisions, in this case, when to choose a book to read.
We must also consider another option, in this case free: the eBiblio platform of the national library network which offers the loan of all types of electronic books.
