Blloon, an e-book subscription service aimed at kids, has launched in the U.K. The company offers new members free access for the first 1,000 pages read. New users can then gain additional access by recommending titles, sharing their choices online and inviting friends to join the service.
Members can also skip the free access mode by subscribing to the service for about £3.99 a month. According to a report in the Bookseller, the service is a German company launched by Thomas Leliveld, founder of e-reading device manufacturer Txtr. Blloon also has plans to expand to Germany and the U.S.
Unlike subscription services such as Oyster, Scribd or Kindle Unlimited, Blloon does not offer unlimited access to titles. Leliveld said that "people can only read so much,” and that the members of Blloon's target audience read approximately 12 books a year.
The Blloon app can be downloaded for free on iOS devices. The service is reported to offer hundreds of thousands of titles from publishers such as Diversion Books, Faber Factory, Guardian Books, Open Road Media, Profile, RosettaBooks, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and Lonely Planet.
