Kindle Unlimited: Great Value, Or Just An Expensive, Poorly Stocked Library?

[Spockydog]

So I received another email from Amazon today, inviting me to subscribe to their Kindle Unlimited service.

I very nearly clicked on the button - there are a couple of Laird Barron titles I'm interested in, but his ebooks are terribly overpriced on Amazon (Occultation is £11.88 & The Croning is £8.54). I figured I'd pay the £7.99 subscription, and even if those were the only books I read this month, I'd still be saving £12.

But then I went through my TBR list just to see what else was available. Out of 40 or so books, only two titles are on Kindle Unlimited. And out of the seven books that I've purchased from Amazon over the past four weeks, only one is eligible.

Another factor is the satisfaction I get when buying books, knowing that I'm supporting the guys who wrote them. I'm not sure how they are compensated for KU 'purchases', but I can't see it being anywhere near the royalty they receive for an ebook sale.

The more I think about this, I'm not sure what Amazon are trying to achieve here. I spend around £30 per month on ebooks. So assuming Amazon's long term goal is to have most of their catalogue available on KU, surely they'll be screwing themselves out of quite a lot of money. Or are they really targeting the occasional book buyer, the guys who actually spend less than the monthly subscription fee?

Are there any subscribers here? What do you think of the service? Is it great value, or just an expensive, poorly stocked library?

ETA: Just realised that the first month is on a free trial basis. So I'm going to suck it and see...

[MisterOJ]

In my opinion, they are trying to copy the Netflix model - have a few books/authors on KU to make it seem worthwhile while 95-98 percent of the library is complete schlock. I don't think it works for books though.

I might spend an hour or two watching some crappy movie on Netflix, but the time investment in reading a book doesn't make it worth it.

[briantw]

It's a solid value if you actively use it. I have signed up for a month two separate times and spent those entire months reading tons of KU books. If you do that, you'll get your money's worth. The problem is that there are just a ton of books I want to read that aren't on it, and if you're only going to use it on a book or two a month you're better off not signing up at all.

As far as royalties go, I'd say authors are fairly compensated for the service. If they weren't, they wouldn't put their books on it. Sure, it's probably not as much as a standard book purchase royalty, but you're also opening up your potential audience. I've read a lot of KU books that I never would have purchased normally and a result got exposed to some fun new authors that it turned out I quite liked. I can definitely see that being beneficial to an author, particularly an indie author who is just trying to gain a following and get his books read. I've gone on to buy non-Unlimited books from authors who had Unlimited works that I enjoyed, and I'm sure that's the goal for most of them.

[Eponine]

It seems like a good value for people who like to browse and substitute. If I weren't starting with a specific list, I'm sure that I could find good things to read for at least a year or two.

However, the list of books that I want to read is very specific. I have a book club book and two potentially obscure reading challenge books every month, and I usually read 2-4 more from a list of things I actively want to read. Usually about half of those, I can get from the public library for free.

[Seli]

It apparently depends on the author on whether Kindle Unlimited is a good idea. At least some romance authors, who thrived in the high release frequency and sales in the ebook market, have seen their income slashed by participating in it http://the-digital-reader.com/2014/12/01/author-discontent-grows-kindle-unlimited-enters-fifth-month/ .

[rulkez]

My Wife and I have made good use of it.

She seems to find a constant stream of stuff to read and I've found some hidden gems (Travellers Gate) that have made it worth the subscription.

[Spockydog]

Having spent a few days using this service, I've decided that I'm not going to continue beyond my free trial. I've tried a number of books/authors that I've never heard of, but haven't got beyond the first chapter on any of them.

It's like Mister OJ said - there are a few books and authors to draw you in, but most of what is available is just unreadable shite.

There's too much quality stuff on my TBR list, and it's impossible to concentrate on sub-standard schlock when I could be reading stuff I really want to read.

[polishgenius]

As far as royalties go, I'd say authors are fairly compensated for the service. If they weren't, they wouldn't put their books on it.

I wouldn't be at all sure. Amazon have such a market dominance (and a reputation for shady practices) that if they tell some lesser-known author 'we're gonna put your books up on Kindle Unlimited, or you'll find your work mysteriously vanishing off recommendation links and various other such things' there's not a lot of choice for them.

[Ser Stevens]

I had it for like 3 months then cancelled it. I read around 20 books a year, but only like 5 of what I wanted were on that list. I read them in that first month, and waited for them to add in the next too.

If you haven't read a series that they have it might be worth it to buy and then cancel when you are done, but I wouldn't keep it forever unless you like a bunch of the books on there.

[PaulineMRoss]

I've subscribed to KU almost since it first came out here in the UK. At £7.99 a month, I only need to read 2-3 books to make it worthwhile. I find it's great for trying out books - if I don't like a book, I don't feel guilty about abandoning it. It's also great for non-fiction, where the Look Inside feature barely gets you past the table of contents and introductory blether. I can download and get straight to the meat.

The way authors are remunerated is hugely controversial. With a sale, the publisher sets the price of the book, and therefore the royalty. With KU, almost all borrows are paid from one pot of money, the total determined by Amazon and divided up by the number of borrows. Every borrow is paid the exact same amount, whether it's a 20-page pamphlet or a 600-page epic fantasy, whether the list price is $0.99 or $9.99. Needless to say, this has led to an emphasis on shorter works over longer ones, and cheap over regular price. Last month the payment was $1.43 per borrow, a hell of a deal for a $0.99 book which would get a royalty of $0.35 from a sale.

The big publishers have almost universally refused to get involved, so there are only a few big-name authors in KU. The rest are all self-published authors, and the quality varies. For anyone who only reads trad-published works, KU probably isn't worthwhile. For anyone who doesn't mind self-pubbed, it's worth trying. There's no risk involved, after all.

Some authors who sell in big numbers already have lost a lot of sales and money to KU, but for midlist authors, it's a great way to get more exposure, and some have made a fortune from borrows.

One other thing: if you borrow a book through KU, the author doesn't get their payment until the book is read to the 10% point.

[HexMachina]

This is off topic but it concerns another Amazon service called Kindle First. As I understand it basically gives a free download of one of four new books chosen each month. As this is my first month having downloaded a Kindle App it's the first time that Amazon made me aware of this and I was wondering if anyone else uses it?

I have no idea what the quality of the books are, btw.

(Think this is included if you are an Amazon Prime customer, not too sure though)

[Eponine]

This is off topic but it concerns another Amazon service called Kindle First. As I understand it basically gives a free download of one of four new books chosen each month. As this is my first month having downloaded a Kindle App it's the first time that Amazon made me aware of this and I was wondering if anyone else uses it?

I have no idea what the quality of the books are, btw.

(Think this is included if you are an Amazon Prime customer, not too sure though)

I've read two of them and both books were pulpy but entertaining. The selections were definitely skewed stereotypically feminine. Neither were anything I'd have picked out if they weren't free, and I didn't continue to look for either author again. I wouldn't say they were a waste of time, but I'm not going to push down any books on my to-read list to read one of those instead. OTOH, they were decent enough that I'd keep trying for one I like more if I'm ever not sure what I want to read next. My to-read list is finite, I don't put every book that I might possibly ever want to read maybe on there, so I have had times where there wasn't anything I definitely wanted to read. (Not enough times to subscribe to the kindle library instead of going to the real library though).

[Spaßvogel]

I bought a Kindle for my wife and they gave us a free month of this. There were a handful of big titles that drew my attention but overall the catalogue is pretty weak IMO. My wife found a single book she really wanted. Our library system has a better selection of Ebooks to be honest.