I've been using Amazon Kindle Unlimited to read a few e-books that they offer. I think it's a great service as long as it's free. In this post, I'll go over what it is and why is it good. I'll also show you how to sign up for it and get a free 1 month trial. Finally, I'll explain the pros and cons of Amazon Kindle Unlimited and why I don't think it's worth the subscription price.
What is Amazon Kindle Unlimited?
In essence, it's a benefit that is also included if you are an Amazon Prime Member. You get to read some of the e-books without having to pay for them. The quantity of e-books are also large so they cover a wide range of interests. From fictions to how-to-for-dummies, from trading to making-money-at-home, you can always find a worth while read from Kindle Unlimited.
If you don't have Prime Membership, that is OK as well. You can subscribe to Kindle Unlimited as long as you provided a method of payment. It's suited for people who are already using Amazon to buy stuff online. Usually, Amazon would give you 1 free month of Prime Membership which also includes Kindle Unlimited. However, they also give you 1 free month of Kindle Unlimited as well. This lets you have 2 months of free Kindle Unlimited to take advantage of.
- How to sign up for it?
You would need to sign up for an Amazon account and put in your credit card information. If you never use Amazon before, it is a really easy process. However, I don't recommend sign up for Amazon just to get Kindle Unlimited. There are torrent sites for e-books that are way more beneficial to you as a reader.
Once you have done the above, click on "Your Account" and look for "Kindle Unlimited"
It will ask you to log in again, and Kindle Unlimited Central page will show up. If they allow you to have 1 free month of trial, you can click Subscribe (Big yellow button). KEEP IN MIND THAT IF YOU FORGET TO UNSUBSCRIBE TO THIS SERVICE, THEY WILL CHARGE YOU ~ $10/MONTH THE DAY AFTER YOUR FREE TRIAL EXPIRES*
That should be it for subscribing to the service. Now you can start checking out books. Keep in mind that only "Kindle Unlimited" books are free. If an e-book doesn't have "Kindle Unlimited" near its title, you cannot read it for free. That is one of the caveats.
Checking out books is also simple, just click "Read for Free" and they should add that book to your library. You then can view it using Kindle, web browser, or Kindle app for Android/iOS devices.
You can only check out 50 titles, so if you hit the cap, you need to return some of the titles. You can return books from Kindle Unlimited Central page as well.
Kindle Unlimited is good because it offers some of the popular best sellers books that are older. Harry Potter series is the best example of this. These books are also thick and heavy as well which makes reading e-book more convenient. If you are on a reading spree or just looking to expand your horizon, this is a good place to start dabbling. The "free" part is also a major selling point. However, it is this "free" thing that you need to watch out for.
Why it is not worth the subscription price
Biggest deal breaker is the automatic credit card charge of $9.99/month once the free trial is over. However, it is not similar to Amazon Prime where they would give you the money back if you haven't ordered anything since the paid period starts. Kindle Unlimited charges you regardless whether you currently check out a book or not. If you decide to cancel subscription, they won't give a refund back but state that you still have access to Kindle Unlimited until your current period expires. The best way to deal with this is to sign up for free trial period then cancel it right away. This way you won't get charged once the trial is over.
Regarding to reading values, some books are really well done but the same contents seem to get regurgitated by different authors. Many popular books with higher quality are not available for Kindle Unlimited so if you stay subscribed past the initial free trial, you are spending more money than its worth. Due to the no-barrier of entry of publishing e-book business, virtually anybody who can come up with something to write can be an author on Amazon. This makes it very difficult to you to get to the meaty stuff because you need to sort through the trash. Once an idea is there, it's pretty much the same thing over and over again until you get overwhelmed with information. Some books can be condensed into a roughly 20 pages but contain a lot of self-advertising and affiliate links. The review system won't help here as most of the books have at least 4 stars and more.
The novel section should keep you entertained for a long time but unless you're a fast reader, you won't be able to fully utilize it. Most of the novel section can be found online anyway unless they're recently published. Together with the two cons above, I don't think it's a good long term service. If you can use it for free, by all means, go for it. Ten bucks a month is decent money that shouldn't be wasted on sub-par titles.