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HarperCollins Boosts Oyster Ebook App Library

Oyster also signed deals with more than 500 smaller publishers.

May 9, 2014

Unlimited ebook subscription service Oyster this week surpassed a milestone 500,000 titles, thanks to a new partnership with HarperCollins.

The publisher contributed 10,000 new books to the app, which also got a boost from newly inked deals with more than 500 smaller publishers.

Oyster launched in September with a library of 100,000 books, available anytime, anywhere, for $9.95 per month. Initially rolled out via an invite-only system, the iPhone app is now available to anyone with some extra monthly spending money.

In the eight months since, the service reached half a million books, and now counts more than 1,600 publishing partners.

"We should mention that the number of pages read on Oyster is rather remarkable," the startup said in a blog entry. "Over 100 million, and more pages read every second of the day (8 pages per second, in case you were curious)."

App users also have the benefit of social media functions, including tracking friends' activities and recommendations, which can be used to help fill up one's own bookshelf. Editorial sets and personalized suggestions allow seamless switches from browsing to reading to sharing.

"Our goal at Oyster has always been to provide the best reading experience in the world for our subscribers," CEO Eric Stromberg said in a statement. "Achieving that goal requires not only a well-designed reading experience, but also building the best and most diverse content library possible."

With that in mind, the company this week nearly doubled the volume of available New York Times best sellers and added more than 1,000 new HarperCollins titles, including Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter, Telegraph Avenue from Michael Chabon, and Neil Gaiman's American Gods.

The addition of new publishers like McSweeney's, Chronicle, Grove Atlantic, and Wiley mean more new, classic, and popular titles. Oyster suggests Sex and the City by Candace Bushnell, It Chooses You by Miranda July, Boo (The World's Cutest Dog) from Chronicle Books, or the For Dummies series and Time Out travel guides.

"We're thrilled to make this latest update to our library and deliver new titles from the world's greatest publishers and authors," Oyster said.

Interested in your own neverending collection of books? Sign up online for a one-month free trial, before the monthly $9.95 fee kicks in. Existing users can also earn $15 for you and a friend through Oyster's new referral program.

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About Stephanie Mlot

Stephanie Mlot
Stephanie joined PCMag in May 2012, moving to New York City from Frederick, Md., where she worked for four years as a multimedia reporter at the second-largest daily newspaper in Maryland. She has also written about technology, science, culture, and Doctor Who for PCMag sister site Geek.com. She is based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

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