Anyone know about Oysterbooks.com?

MrsC7

I keep getting promoted tweets by Oyster.com which advertises itself as "Netflix for books."  

Is it any good? Selection? Availability?

I'm curious because while I love my local library, my inner princess who demands instant gratification hates being 76th in line for a book.  I would consider paying a minimal monthly subscription for a decent selection with good availability.

fabk

Never heard of it but now I am intrigued.

fabk

When I type in oyster.com I get a hotel website.  :-/

mrsvedo

I've heard of it and looked into it a bit, along with Scribd and one other one that I can't remember right now. The main drawback I saw with all of these services is that they all only work with one or two publishers which limits what they have. Yes, they have thousands of books available but the selection of what I'd actually be interested in is relatively small.

MrsC7

fabk said:

When I type in oyster.com I get a hotel website.  :-/

@fabk Whoops, apparently it's www.oysterbooks.com

MrsC7

mrsvedo said:

I've heard of it and looked into it a bit, along with Scribd and one other one that I can't remember right now. The main drawback I saw with all of these services is that they all only work with one or two publishers which limits what they have. Yes, they have thousands of books available but the selection of what I'd actually be interested in is relatively small.

@mrsvedo Boooooo that's what I was afraid of

mrsvedo

MrsC7 said:

mrsvedo said:

I've heard of it and looked into it a bit, along with Scribd and one other one that I can't remember right now. The main drawback I saw with all of these services is that they all only work with one or two publishers which limits what they have. Yes, they have thousands of books available but the selection of what I'd actually be interested in is relatively small.

@mrsvedo Boooooo that's what I was afraid of

Yeah, I was bummed. I wanted to love it (or one of the others) but they just fell short.

lauraplusbaby

I had it and Scribd was not impressed with the selection. Plus, on some books it would be missing a sentence or even a paragraph. So frustrating. I'm pretty sure Oylster only works with iOS.

Super_Librarian

After using it for a couple months now, I can say that I really like it. I actually found quite a bit of books I'm interested in (at least 100 or more), and they are always adding new books and publishers. They only have a few of the "big" publishers right now, but there are plenty of high quality smaller publishers on board. 

My advice is to sign up for the free 1-month trial and browse through the selections to see if there's enough on there that interests you in order to justify the expense. For me it's a bargain because I know I'll read several books a month in the app. I'm always stumbling across books that have been on my TBR list for a long time or books that friends have recommended. 

Oyster does only work with iOS at the moment, but they are planning to make it available for Android in the future. 

When I first started using it, I wrote a post about the pros and cons of the app (in my experience): 

http://www.superlibrarianblog.com/2013/10/review-oyster-netflix-for-books.html

MrsC7

Thanks @Super_Librarian!

sessionswedding

I looked at it but like @Super_Librarian said, it only works with iOS, so they lost my business there.  My phone and tablet are both Android.