Both passionate readers, those who buy several books every month, like those who only read a title that catches their attention from time to time; wait for the holidays to spend more time reading. They consult the recommended lists or the ranking of the best sellersThey ask friends or neighborhood booksellers for references and load their suitcases with books as if to entertain themselves in the long free hours of rest, disconnected from daily obligations.
There is another option for read without limits on vacation that more and more people try and adopt. In principle, it saves the difficult trance of choosing texts (and making mistakes) because it allows you to carry a huge library on your back. And, what is not less important, at a cost much lower than the purchase of several copies.
Its about book streaming service, also called “Subscription reading” Or simply, “Reading applications or platforms”.
Like the streaming services that we already know for videos or music, with the payment of a monthly fee it is possible to read all the books that we want from an immense catalog. Each platform has particular characteristics and agreements with different publishers, but even those that are priced in dollars, cost less than a single book just launched on the market.
Cost and benefit
The international model of a reading platform is Scribd, which like many other services of the same style, not only functions as a library of digital copies, but also contains audiobooks, podcasts, music scores, magazines and documents. It allows you to read online, download and also upload your own material to the web. The price is international: $ 8.99 per month. A very cheap rate anywhere in the world, except in Argentina. Close to that cost are other reading platforms. For example, Amazon Prime Reading, which allows you to read up to ten books at the same time. Or the Kindle, the world’s most famous digital reader, which is unlimited starting at a fixed cost per month of around 10 euros. The Spanish Nubico, whose value is also around 10 euros, promises 60,000 books in its library and is one of the best known by Spanish readers in Europe.
Among us, the subscription platforms that have grown the most, both for the material they contain and for its cost adapted to our possibilities, are the Argentine Leamos and, more recently, Bookmate, a service that was born in Europe, but which has focused with intensity in expanding its audience in Latin America.
“The subscriber pays a fee of $ 550 per month and can read and listen to more than 40,000 books, audiobooks and articles in an unlimited way,” explains María Belén Marinone, one of the people in charge of Leamos. The platform offers a wide catalog of all genres, from contemporary fiction, classics, thrillers, poetry, essays, etc. You can also access through it books, audiobooks and articles of Exclusive Content, written by renowned local and international authors. And to material from more than 150 publishers, including large and independent ”.
A similar cost proposes Bookmate per month, $ 330, and offers a family subscription with three accounts for $ 799. In both cases, you have to add the corresponding local taxes.
All the material offered by the platforms can be read without online limits or downloaded to make it available “off line”. Any digital device is used to access the applications: cell phone, reader, tablet or computer. And all the services offer a free trial month to evaluate the content and the modalities of use.
Digital vs. analogical
A strong controversy has arisen around digital reading. There are those who strictly defend the traditional paper format of the book and all the rituals that accompany it, from buying in bookstores to underlining, conservation and the possibility of consultation offered by a tangible volume, owned or owned by a library. But proponents of virtual platforms also have powerful arguments.
“Bookmate was created 11 years ago in Europe and began to be developed for markets with high levels of piracy,” explains María Pellicer Yuste, the platform’s communication director for Latin America. The idea at the beginning was, how do we develop such a great product that people pay to read instead of downloading the books for free? We have grown to 13 million users in this time, 45 thousand of them in Latin America. We don’t think of Bookmate as a substitute for the physical book, actually, what many users love about the platform is that it allows them to read, discover, nibble here and there, and then decide if it is a book they would like to buy. in physic. Another thing that’s great is that our catalog allows many users to access books that would be very difficult to find in their country or region. “
“The subscription reading service does not compete with other formats but rather complements the experience – explains María Belén Marinone-. We can have thousands of favorite books in our library without the need to occupy the physical space of our house and we take them with us wherever we go ”.
The storage and cost argument is one of the strongest for heavy readers, who spend vastly more than a subscription’s worth each month on books and see their libraries skyrocket.
Years ago a video circulated on the internet that described the virtues of paper, as if it were a new technological launch. And there we discovered that in terms of practicality and economy of resources, a book is a perfect artifact. What both an electronic text that is purchased individually and the subscription platforms demonstrate is that together they complete the menu of a practice that has very different consumers with very different needs. The paper version and the digital version do not cancel each other out, they enhance each other.
What to read
Although they have very extensive catalogs that no reader could ever cover, no platform has “all” the books. It is convenient to do a free trial and verify if the material of each service adapts to our tastes and needs. In addition, for example, Leamos, offers specialist talks, workshops and reading clubs to analyze texts. And Bookmate, a newsletter with news and a network of readers with recommendations. The idea is to guide users to new titles, genres and authors.
The experience is ideal to try on vacation. You just need to download one of the applications on your cell phone and look for the book that best accompanies relaxation and free time. In any of its formats, the experience of reading generates ideas, produces changes, entertains and improves the quality of life.
You may also like
Image gallery
