Playster has taken their website service out of beta and has formally launched in the United States. There are various membership tiers available and customers can get access to 250,000 e-Books, and more than 50,000 audiobooks.
The one interesting aspect about Playster is that they have a tiered membership service that allows you to access a specific channel. If you just want to read e-Books you can do this for $9.95 a month. Alternatively, consumers can pay $24.95 a month for unlimited access to all of the company’s media content. While Playster’s music channel costs the same as the book channel for monthly access, Playster does offer a single-media pass to movies for $3.95 a month, and video games for $4.95.
Many e-book subscription sites only have content deals with a few publishers when they launch or elect to showcase titles by indie authors. Playster is offering a slew of e-books from Simon & Schuster, Harlequin and HarperCollins. This will give you access to bestsellers such as American Sniper, Steve Jobs and popular authors like Brad Thor, Cassandra Clare, Stephen King, Jodi Picoult and Vince Fylnn.
The company has an Android app that will go live within a few days so you can read and listen to audiobooks while on the go.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.