Guess Who Just Joined the E-Book Subscription Game

Hey, occasional Kindle-users — does unlimited content make a more frequent jaunt into e-books sound more appealing? That's what Amazon is hoping: on Friday, Amazon launched Kindle Unlimited. For $9.99 per month, the subscription service gives users unlimited access to a library of 600,000 e-book titles and 2,000 Audible audiobooks through Kindle or the Kindle app. Audiobooks will also be enabled with Whispersync for Voice, the tool that allows users to switch between reading and listening to a book.

If you think the retailing giant's new offering sounds a little bit like Oyster or Scribd, you're not the only one. They're entering a competitive market — but perhaps their brand name and established customer loyalty to the Kindle platform will allow for their success (which, ultimately, could spell bad news for these small companies, unfortunately). FYI: Oyster is $9.95 per month, and Scribd is $8.99 per month, so Amazon is priced to play ball.

Midday Friday, Oyster's CEO and co-founder Eric Stromberg released this statement through a PR rep:

We’re not surprised. They have pivoted from transactional to subscription-based in other media, and have had limited success. They really paved the way in ebooks, and it’s exciting to see them embrace the market we created as the future of books.

Amazon is offering a 30-day trial of Kindle Unlimited, which you should jump on if you're interested or an e-book-lover.

Oh, and as long as we're talking Amazon's business, just a reminder: That whole Amazon vs. Hachette dispute thing? It's not over with. Not by a long shot.

This post has been updated.