Subscriptions are often touted as the answer to the pay-for choice hurdle—the alternative of the ebook product sale. However, as service after service clamors for our monthly subscription fee, we find that we are drowning in subscriptions. In fact, we might be at a tipping point when the subscription economy gets disrupted, less abused, or even pushed aside in favor of a different solution.
In the October 16, 2022 edition of TNPS, The New Publishing Standard, Mark Williams reports on the “Subscription Wars” fought among services like Storytelling, Nextory, BookBeat, and the giants such as Kobo and Amazon.
Williams quotes Kobo CEO Michael Tamblyn’s rationale for subscription from an interview with Ed Nawotka at Publishers Weekly—”Start a book, see if you like it, and either keep going or try something new. It has cracked open discovery in a way that publishers had always hoped.”
If we take that rationale to a logical end, then we must acknowledge that the monthly subscription fee itself stands in the way of “discovery.”
Inara gives readers a new path to discovery, “Only pay for what you read, one page at a time.” And, “When the page turns, the author earns.” Jump to any place in the book and start reading and only pay for what text you display on your screen. Purchase the whole book at any time. Inara makes this possible with streaming ebooks micropayments, which happen in real time.
We’re drowning in subscriptions. There’s an opportunity to find a fit between each offering and its appropriate monetization model. Inara provides authors/publishers a new way, and a low bar for readers to get over to discover their books.
