For nearly three years now, whether you should get a Kindle Unlimited subscription has been one of the hottest topics of discussion among netizens all around the world. Although this subscription is only open to users in selected countries now, Amazon promises to expand. From their website:
Customers in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, India, Brazil, Mexico and Canada can sign-up for Kindle Unlimited in their local Amazon marketplace.
The question is, do you really know what you're getting into?
2. You’ll have access to over 1,000,000 eBooks and over 150,000 audiobooks at any time.
3. You don’t need a Kindle device to utilize this service. The Kindle app can be installed on your PC, Android phone, iPhone, or iPad; then you’re good to go. As Kindle Unlimited says, with them you can take every word, every sentence, and every story wherever you go.
On the other hand, here are some of the things that you need to know before subscribing to Amazon Kindle Unlimited:
1. If you are a GoodReader or a book blogger who writes about bestsellers or recently published popular books, you should think twice before subscribing to Kindle Unlimited. Although the Amazon Kindle Bookstore is the number 1 shopping destination with over 3,700,000 eBooks to choose from, only 30% of them are currently enrolled to the Kindle Unlimited system. The list of available books excludes those which belong to the five biggest publishing companies – Simon and Schuster, Macmillan, HarperCollins Publishers, Penguin Group, and Hachette Book Group. Good news, if you haven’t read any of the books included in the Harry Potter series or The Hunger Games trilogy then, they are among the bestsellers which you can always borrow using a Kindle Unlimited subscription.
2. The selection of available titles varies by country. The most extensive collection is in the US Kindle Store. Other countries offer fewer titles. However, if you are a subscriber to the US Kindle Unlimited program, you can continue to download and read your selections from the US Kindle Store, even when you travel to other countries. It is also possible to gift a Kindle Unlimited Subscription to a user who is in one of the countries not yet service by Amazon.
3. The payment of $9.99 a month does not entitle you to own the books that you have borrowed. Other than that, you can only borrow 10 books at a time. If you have eyed a new book you want to read, you must swap it with the one of your allotted ten books.
4. You can cancel your Kindle Unlimited subscription anytime, but you can’t ever expect a refund. Also, you will lose all of your downloaded KU titles when the subscription expires.
5. While some of us are after bestselling books which Kindle Unlimited doesn’t offer at this moment, Kindle Unlimited has a list of beautifully written novels and short reads written by self-publishing authors in all genres which are all starting to get popular. Mind you, some even have better plots compared to other bestsellers.
6. Kindle Unlimited is not for busy people and slow readers. Come to think of it, the reason why you subscribed to Kindle Unlimited is that you wanted to save a huge amount of money in reading books. If you are a busy person or a slow reader that can only afford to read one or two books per month, that doesn’t really count as saving. There are lots of books that might be enrolled in the Kindle Unlimited program which you can purchase for only $2.99 or less. If you’re only an occasional reader, then you can save more just by buying the books you want from Amazon one-by-one, instead of registering for a Kindle Unlimited subscription at a cost of $9.99 per month.
7. Kindle Unlimited is for active readers and students. You can find a whole list of academic books which are Kindle Unlimited Eligible. One click and you have it on your carousel. There’s no need for you to buy pricey copies anymore because you already have it safe on your Kindle.
In conclusion, I’m not saying that subscribing to Kindle Unlimited is a bad idea. I am an active subscriber of Kindle Unlimited, and so far, I don’t have a problem with it, except for the ten-book-at-a-time limit. I was a huge snob for bestsellers before I subscribed to Kindle Unlimited, but as time goes by, I just can’t get enough of the works of some of the independent authors who publish their works there. The low price of the Kindle Unlimited Subscription allows me to try many new and exciting authors I would not have considered before.
Why don’t you give it a try for one month free of charge and find out if it suits you?
Note: If you want to read more about Kindle Unlimited, you can grab a copy of Kindle Unlimited Subscription: What You Must Know Before Purchasing & How to Maximize the Use of Your Kindle Unlimited eBook Subscription (kindle subscription, kindle, amazon books kindle)
