By keeping BookBeat UK out there despite never warranting a mention in the stream of positive press releases, the BookBeat CEO obviously envisages a not too distant future where British publishers will wake up to the value of the unlimited subscription model.
Sweden-based digital books subscription streaming service BookBeat beats its Q2 target as expected, crossing the 500,000 subscriber mark with just days to go.
We’ll have to wait for the Q2 report next month for revenue and other details, but CEO Niclas Sandin tells us several of the BookBeat markets – Sweden, of course, but also Finland and Germany – each have over 100,000 subscribers, with Denmark and Poland both performing well.
Explained Sandin in the press release:
Five years after the first broad launch on the Swedish market in the spring of 2016, we have reached another major milestone on our journey. Half a million people around Europe have made BookBeat a natural part of their daily lives. I am incredibly proud of the team that in market after market proves that we can create growth. Regardless of whether we launch in Sweden, Finland or in a world market such as Germany, we can get over 100,000 to pay for BookBeat in just a few years.
Missing there is mention of BookBeat UK, which for the longest time has not been referenced in the BookBeat promotional media, but is still live and evidently at least treading water.
The problem being not the British consumer, who love subscription as much as the next guy, but British publishers, many of whom like their American counterparts, have a knee-jerk reaction to the streaming model and prefer not to look too closely at the myriad advantages subscription brings to the table.
With that in mind, view BookBeat UK as a success story just for staying afloat in such hostile waters..
Sandin’s optimism is to be admired – by keeping BookBeat UK out there despite never warranting a mention in the stream of positive press releases, the BookBeat CEO obviously envisages a not too distant future where British publishers will wake up to the value of the unlimited subscription model. Meanwhile there is presumably enough paying subscribers in the UK to sustain BookBeat UK until such time as UK publishers come to their senses.
Until that time, British publishers will continue to hand Amazon-owned Audible control of the British audiobook market, in the full knowledge they will pay the price down the road.
As I’ve argued many times, as and when Amazon decides to make all its Audible markets unlimited subscription (which will likely bring Amazon far more revenue than the credit model now used in all Audible markets except Spain and Italy) consumers will rejoice and publishers will scream, writhe and shout in righteous anger.
And then they will accept the new model because by eschewing options for so long, they will have left themselves with no bargaining chips.
