Amazon Launches Unlimited E-Book Subscriptions For $9.99 Per Month

Amazon.com Inc.

launched a subscription service Friday offering unlimited reading from a 600,000-title catalog for $9.99 per month. The service, which also provides unlimited access to more than 2,000 audiobooks, can be used with Kindle devices or with Amazon's free Kindle reading app for phones, tablets, PCs and Macs. Amazon's new plan competes with the similar but far smaller Oyster and Scribd services. The long-rumored service was inadvertently disclosed earlier this week in an announcement on Amazon's Web site that was quickly removed without comment Wednesday. Amazon's new subscription service will compete with the similar but far smaller Oyster and Scribd services. A few titles from the service include The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Harry Potter series, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and reference titles including books from the For Dummies series and Lonely Planet travel guides. Amazon accounts for one-third of book trade, and has been in a months-long pricing battle with SCA's Hachette Book Group. Recently it opened negotiations with CBS Corp.'s

Simon & Schuster unit. n pre-market trading, Amazon changed hands at $355.11, up 0.75 percent. Barnes & Noble Inc.

was unchanged at $21.76.