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Elly’s Choice Offers a New Book Club Style eBook Subscription Service in the Netherlands

saskiaAll you can read subscription plans like Kindle Unlimited may be getting all the press but that’s not the only idea being tested right now. A new service launched today in the Netherlands, and it plans to update the old book club idea for the ebook  era.

Elly’s Choice offers a simple and cheap subscription plan that costs 3 euros per month for 10 ebooks – with a catch.

On the downside, subscribers can only get the 10 titles offered in a given month, but on the upside they do get all 10 titles as DRM-free Epub for only 3 euros a month. (Technically the ebooks have digital watermarks, but that is close enough to be splitting hairs.)

elly's choice

I’m told the books are a mix of backlist and former best sellers, but since they are in Dutch I can’t confirm that detail. But I have been told that the titles for the first monthly bundle were provided by VBK Media, one of the larger Dutch publishing houses.

Correction: I’ve just been told that Elly’s Choice was developed by e-commerce company Digi-Muse, and that it has the support of two leading publishing companies, VBK (representing several big houses like Luitingh Sijthof, Contact, Atlas) and Dutch Media. Thanks, Jurgen!

You can find more information on the Elly’s Choice website.

Elly’s Choice is in many ways similar to Entitle, a US based startup, but I don’t think they have  the same business model. Entitle offers a 2 ebook per month plan for $15, while Elly’s Choice charges only 3 euros.

The radical price difference suggests that Elly’s Choice pitches itself to publishers as a marketing and promotion service, and bills the publishers. This is very similar to services like BookBub, which charges authors and publishers for the privilege of being included in a daily email blast.

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Comments


G. August 28, 2014 um 4:09 am

The books seem very promising. I’m not sure how recent they are but they are by well known (Dutch) authors and cover a wide range of interests.


Jurgen Snoeren August 28, 2014 um 10:42 am

The service is a joint effort of two leading publishing companies, VBK (representing several big houses like Luitingh Sijthof, Contact, Atlas) and Dutch Media. It basically offers 10 books for €2,99, plus access to reviews. They have promised that the bestsellers are recent (not older than 3 months), although it’s hard to see how they can keep that promise for very long. So basically it’s a monthly e-book bundle being offered by several of the biggest publishers in The Netherlands, using the bestsellers to push the backlist as well.

Nate Hoffelder August 28, 2014 um 10:54 am

Thanks! (This is more detail than I can find in Dutch coverage.) I’ll fix the post.

Jurgen Snoeren August 28, 2014 um 3:18 pm

I must correct one bit: the books are at least 5 months old.


eBook Bundle Service Elly's Choice Goes International, Rebrands as Book Choice | The Digital Reader January 30, 2017 um 3:32 pm

[…] it launched in August 2014 Elly's Choice offered Dutch readers a monthly bundle of ebooks for a flat fee. They […]


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