Amazon.com appears to be mulling a $9.99-a-month e-book and audiobook subscription service dubbed "Kindle Unlimited."
The as-yet-unreleased service would offer unlimited access to more than 600,000 book titles and thousands of audiobooks on any device, according to a test page that was briefly online. The test page was cached before it was taken down.
The test page was apparently first spotted by gigaom.com.
Amazon.com did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The test page notes that popular titles in Kindle Unlimited include books like Water for Elephants and Life of Pi. It also includes the Hunger Games series and the Harry Potter series.
Book categories include science fiction, romance and mystery/thriller and suspense.
If Amazon does release this subscription service, it could be a big deal - not just for the company but for the e-books business.
"This could be a huge game changer in the publishing field, changing the economic model of the entire industry," said Dan Olds, an analyst with The Gabriel Consulting Group. "There are going to be some sticky problems, like how to work out compensation between the myriad of large and small publishers, plus those who publish for themselves using Amazon as their sole distribution platform. But I think this could be wildly popular with readers."
For avid readers, it would likely be popular.
"Amazon's all-you-can-read Kindle buffet would reduce costs for a large number of readers, and at the same time, probably increase Amazon's Kindle revenue," said Olds. "While other e-book publishers will see the need to respond with plans of their own, Amazon's sheer scale will make it difficult for them to come up with a competitive plan. Amazon already has a massive number of publishers and authors on their platform."
Sharon Gaudin covers the Internet and Web 2.0, emerging technologies, and desktop and laptop chips for Computerworld. Follow Sharon on Twitter at @sgaudin, on Google+ or subscribe to Sharon's RSS feed . Her email address is sgaudin@computerworld.com.
See more by Sharon Gaudin on Computerworld.com.