Founding (2007–2013)

Scribd began as a site to host and share documents.[12] While at Harvard, Trip Adler was inspired
to start Scribd after learning about the lengthy process required to publish academic papers.[14]
His father, a doctor at Stanford, was told it would take 18 months to have his medical research
published.[14] Adler wanted to create a simple way to publish and share written content online.[15]
He co-founded Scribd with Jared Friedman and attended the inaugural class of Y Combinator in
the summer of 2006.[16] There, Scribd received its initial $120,000 in seed funding and then
launched in a San Francisco apartment in March 2007.[6]

Scribd was called "the YouTube for documents", allowing anyone to self-publish on the site
using its document reader.[14] The document reader turns PDFs, Word documents, and
PowerPoints into Web documents that can be shared on any website that allows embeds.[17] In its
first year, Scribd grew rapidly to 23.5 million visitors as of November 2008.[18] It also ranked as
one of the top 20 social media sites according to Comscore.[18]

In June 2009, Scribd launched the Scribd Store, enabling writers to easily upload and sell digital
copies of their work online.[19] That same month, the site partnered with Simon & Schuster to sell
e-books on Scribd.[20] The deal made digital editions of 5,000 titles available for purchase on
Scribd, including books from bestselling authors like Stephen King, Dan Brown, and Mary
Higgins Clark.[21]

In October 2009, Scribd launched its branded reader for media companies including The New
York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, The Huffington Post, TechCrunch, and
MediaBistro.[17] ProQuest began publishing dissertations and theses on Scribd in December
2009.[22] In August 2010, many notable documents hosted on Scribd began to go viral, including
the California Proposition 8 ruling, which received over 100,000 views in about 24 minutes, and
HP's lawsuit against Mark Hurd's move to Oracle.[23][24]

Subscription service (2013–present)

Screenshots of Scribd's subscription service

In October 2013, Scribd officially launched its unlimited subscription service for e-books.[11]
This gave users unlimited access to Scribd's library of digital books for a flat monthly fee.[11] The
company also announced a partnership with HarperCollins which made the entire backlist of
HarperCollins' catalog available on the subscription service.[25] According to Chantal Restivo-
Alessi, chief digital officer at HarperCollins, this marked the first time that the publisher has
released such a large portion of its catalog.[26] In March 2014, Scribd announced a deal with
Lonely Planet, offering the travel publisher's entire library on its subscription service.[27]

In May 2014, Scribd further increased its subscription offering with 10,000 titles from Simon &
Schuster.[28] These titles included works from authors such as: Ray Bradbury, Doris Kearns
Goodwin, Ernest Hemingway, Walter Isaacson, Stephen King, Chuck Klosterman, and David
McCullough.[29]

Scribd added audiobooks to its subscription service in November 2014 and comic books in
February 2015.[4][30]

In February 2016, it was announced that only titles from a rotating selection of the library would
be available for unlimited reading, and subscribers would have credits to read three books and
one audiobook per month from the entire library; unused credits roll over to the next month.[31]

Scribd's unlimited service launched on February 6, 2018, and includes access to an unlimited
number of books and audiobooks, alongside unlimited access to news, magazines, documents,
and sheet music,[32] for a monthly subscription fee of US$8.99.[33] However, under this unlimited
service, Scribd will "occasionally [...] limit the titles that [members are] able to access within a
specific content library in a 30-day period."[34] The previous credit system for books and
audiobooks were removed.[32]

In October 2018, Scribd announced a joint subscription to Scribd and The New York Times for
$12.99 per month.

Audiobooks

In November 2014, Scribd added audiobooks to its subscription library.[35] Wired noted that this
was the first subscription service to offer unlimited access to audiobooks, and "it represents a
much larger shift in the way digital content is consumed over the net."[36] In April 2015, the
company expanded its audiobook catalog in a deal with Penguin Random House.[37] This added
9,000 audiobooks to its platform including titles from authors like Lena Dunham, John Grisham,
Gillian Flynn, and George R.R. Martin.[38]

Comics

In February 2015, Scribd introduced comics to its subscription service.[39] The company added
10,000 comics and graphic novels from publishers including Marvel, Archie, Boom! Studios,
Dynamite, IDW, and Valiant.[30] These included series such as Guardians of the Galaxy,
Daredevil, X-O Manowar, and The Avengers.[40][41] However, in December 2016, comics were
eliminated from the service due to low demand.