Netflix for books adds major publisher: Oyster Books is now offering 1,000 titles from Macmillan, which wants to foster alternatives to Amazon for its e-book business.

Crain's New York reports:

Manhattan-based e-book subscription service Oyster has gotten a little closer to its dream of being the Netflix for books. The company announced Tuesday that it had reached a deal to carry 1,000 titles from Macmillan, the smallest of the Big Five New York publishers.

Macmillan joins HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster on the service, whose catalog now includes more than 1 million titles. A host of smaller publishers, including Bloomsbury and Soho Press, have also recently come on board, the two-year-old startup announced Tuesday.

Macmillan had said in December it would begin trying out subscription services, which include San Francisco-based Scribd. In a year-end letter to authors and agents, Macmillan CEO John Sargent cited a need for "broader channels to reach our readers" in light of Amazon’s 64% market share of the publisher’s e-book business.

He also noted that the titles would be those that are "not well represented at bricks-and-mortar retail stores."

Competition.