Thanks in large part to technology, it is quite likely that children born in this millennium will never know what its like to have a library card or learn from a physical text book. Several entrepreneurs and startups are banking on this idea, while brick-and-mortar booksellers and publishers are left wondering, “What’s next?”
E-books and online publishing is a $6 billion a year industry and is showing no signs of slowing down. Almost every iPad and tablet in the U.S. has an e-books app, while Amazon has sold millions of Kindles worldwide. And there is still plenty of room for growth.
Here are some startups that have recognized this opportunity and are currently capitalizing on this market in order to revolutionize the way we all read.
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE STARTUPS CHANGING THE FACE OF BOOK PUBLISHING
Plympton’s Rooster
This San Francisco startup is an online fiction subscription service that charges readers $5 a month in order to receive small bits of fiction that take under 30 minutes to read. Over the course of one month, a reader will receive a total of up to two books.
Plympton realized that its online data collection aspect of the business was something extremely valuable and something that traditional booksellers could never afford to obtain. Rooster capitalizes on the low production costs of e-books, while personalizing their marketing to give consumers something they didn’t even know they wanted.
Emily Books
This indie startup in Brooklyn offers consumers more in terms of a whole book subscription service. Subscribers pay either $13.99 a month or a discounted price of $159.99 annually in order to automatically receive one book per month online or downloadable to almost any device.
Emily Books looks to personalize the e-book experience by allowing readers to select which books they would like to receive. The subscription also includes access to exclusive events and news. Emily Books allows readers to explore before they buy and also offers refunds on any undelivered portions of annual subscriptions.
Oyster
Oyster takes more of a “Netflix” approach by allowing subscribers access to an unlimited number of books for a flat monthly fee. For $9.95 a month, customers can access as many of Oyster’s 200,000+ titles as they so desire from any iPad or iPhone.
The New York City based startup is looking to evolve the way people interact with books with the mission of building the best reading experience from any place in the world. Oyster’s customer base is growing and allows them to track what their readers prefer, in order to offer new titles that are in line with what their customers will read. Readers are allowed to come and go as they please, without having to worry about spending $14.99 on a new paperback when they can spend significantly less for significantly more.
Scribd
This San Francisco startup offers a similar service as Oyster with its “Netflix/Hulu” system, but offers books over a wider range of devices. With a lower price of $8.99 per month, Scribd users get access to over 300,000 books from over 900 publishers on any or all devices from iPhones and iPads to Kindles and Androids. Scribd also allows readers to download books in order to keep reading while offline.
Scribd goes beyond the traditional target market of readers, marketing itself to authors and publishers as well. The startup also differentiates itself by offering a unique revenue model for publishers. Scribd tracks its readers’ activity and uses that data to pay publishers when their books are read. With this model, Scribd goes beyond revolutionizing the way readers read by changing the game for authors and publishers alike.
Now, any avid reader will likely agree that sometimes there is just no replacing a new book or browsing through an actual bookstore. But one thing is certain: the face of publishing is changing. Physical books and bookstores may never actually become a thing of the past, but as these startups are so clearly showing, e-books are here to stay.
