Amazon readying Netflix-like service for eBooks, report claims

As Amazon prepares to launch its first tablet offering this fall, the tech press seems to be in agreement that the device will give owners deeply integrated access to the company’s suite of digital services. It will download books from Amazon’s Kindle book store, stream music from the company’s Cloud Player service, pull down movies from Amazon Instant Video, and provide a window into Amazon’s numerous additional services. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Amazon is also working on a new service its tablet offering might take advantage of down the road: Netflix for books. Read on for more.

The subscription eBook service is currently in early development stages according to the report, so it may be some time before anything launches. If launched, Amazon’s service will allow users to pay a monthly fee for unlimited access to a collection of Kindle books, though the company is still trying to get publishers on board so it is unclear what kind of titles might be available.

Amazon is reportedly trying to position the service in such a way that a catalog of older titles would be made available to Amazon Prime subscribers, but the hope is that Amazon isn’t stopping there. Access to new titles and best-sellers will likely be paramount to the success of the service, so the case will have to be made that such a service would create new revenue opportunities for popular titles as opposed to stripping sales of individual titles, as logic might dictate.

The report also notes that publishers are worried about Amazon’s proposed subscription eBook service as it may strain their relationships with other book vendors.