Amazon is said to be mulling the launch of a new Netflix-type subscription service for e-books that would offer access to hundreds of thousands of titles and audio books for only $9.99 a month.
The offer, dubbed Kindle Unlimited, appeared briefly on a page on Amazon’s site, but the page has been pulled, according to GigaOm.com, which first reported the news.
“Enjoy unlimited access to over 600,000 titles and thousands of audio books on any device for just $9.99 a month,” said the now- yanked page.
None of the Big 5 publishers — Penguin, Random House, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group or Macmillan — appears to be participating.
The test pages listed titles such as Michael Lewis’ “Flash Boys” from W.W. Norton and “Winter’s Tale” by Mark Helprin from Houghton Mifflin, so those publishers appear to be in.
Amazon is involved in a bitter dispute with Hachette Book Group over e-book pricing. Earlier this week, CBS CEO Les Moonves let slip that his Simon & Schuster book subsidiary was also in the midst of negotiations with Amazon, but he did not divulge much more than that.
The all-you-can-read offer may also have implications for how publishers pay authors, since now author compensation is tied to how many copies of a book are sold.
Also not clear is what might happen to the books in an e-reader if a consumer stopped paying the monthly subscription fee.
Amazon did not return a call seeking comment.