Oyster, E-Book Subscription Service, Shutting It's Doors

Whew! I'm tired after all that.

Panzer was tootling around in the Catosphere just having a relaxing trip today. Suddenly, the quiet was littered with sniffling and snuffling and raindrops pitter-pattering on the Panzermobile windshield.

Following the trail of the commotion, our big bad kitty went to the Publishers' Weekly site. According to a post there by Calvin Reid, ebook subscription service Oyster is closing. Oyster is a service similar to a buffet dinner in that you can read all the ebooks you want per month for $9.99. Mr. Reid quotes from a post at the Re/code news site that some members of the Oyster staff will be moving to Google Play Books. Included in Mr. Reid's post is a link to the Re/code post.

Panzer followed the trail even farther and went to the Smashwords Blog site. According to a post there by Mark Coker, he (Coker) received direct notification from Oyster about the closing. Since Smashwords is a provider of indie published ebooks to Oyster, Mr. Coker was provided with information about the closing date (sometime in 2016). They both (Oyster and Smashwords) will continue their contract agreement until that time. Mr. Coker also gives his opinion on the current state of the ebook subscription service market, including Scribd and KDP Select.

Panzer says, "Hmmm. Google Play Books?"

Note: Each of these posts is l-o-n-g, but the Smashwords post is the l-o-n-g-e-s-t. Bring a h-u-g-e pot of tea, three muffins and a cushion to sit on.


To read the post at Publishers' Weekly, tootle over to Oyster
To read the post at Smashwords, tootle over to Oyster and KDP Select