Entertainment subscription services are besides becoming more popular. People are less concerned with owning their media outright and are increasingly numb to the issues surrounding DRM .
therefore, you ‘d expect a subscription servicing like Kindle Unlimited to be amazing. It ‘s the best of both worlds, right ? But Amazon ‘s promise of over a million ebooks for fair $ 9.99/month is excessively good to be true. hera are some reasons why .
1. Kindle Unlimited Has a Poor Selection of Books
Amazon likes to trumpet that Kindle Unlimited has more than one million books available for subscribers to read. And while that figure is accurate, you wo n’t find many bestsellers or popular books on the tilt .
none of the major publication houses have made their books available on Kindle Unlimited. That means no Penguin Random House, Hachette, Macmillan, HarperCollins, or Simon & Schuster. If you have a front-runner writer, there ‘s a good luck their work is published by one of these “ big Five ” .
right now, there are more than 1.4 million books available on Kindle Unlimited. Of those, about 1.3 million books are Amazon Exclusives. This means they ‘re not available for sale anywhere else ; in other words, they ‘re all self-published. That leaves scantily 100,000 non-exclusive books ; it ‘s about 8 % of the full. A large helping of these are besides self-published, but some are probably to be from small publish houses .
MAKEUSEOF VIDEO OF THE DAY While there ‘s nothing inherently wrong with self-published books, and success stories like Twilight and The martian usher there are some capital books to be found, the lack of any books from popular authors is a problem. Most people do n’t have the time or the matter to to dig through the pile to try and find the following The martian. You probably want to know that the books you ‘re reading are well-written, by rights edited, and entertaining .
The early slope of this is evening if you love reading indie titles, you ‘ve probably got a few major authors whose work you want to read excessively. For most people, Kindle Unlimited simply ca n’t replace buying books. If you want to pick up the latest George R.R. Martin or Bill Bryson title, you ‘ll have to buy them in addition to your Kindle Unlimited subscription .
2. Kindle Unlimited Is Expensive
Although $ 9.99/month may sound pretty reasonable for all-you-can-read ebooks, when you consider the price of the titles available it ‘s actually quite expensive .
The huge majority of self-published books on Amazon sell for less than $ 5. many are less than $ 3 and some are even less than $ 1. This means that to make up for the $ 10 subscription tip, you ‘re going to need to read quite a few books a calendar month .
If you only read the most expensive titles you can find, reading two books a calendar month will see you saving some money, but you ‘ll most likely have to read three or four to make a saving. While batch of readers can get through a book a workweek without any fuss, the temptation to read non-Unlimited books is going to be gamey .
Looking at the choice and the prices, it ‘s difficult to see many people being well-served by a Kindle Unlimited subscription. If you like self-published books, you can well pick up two or three a month for less than unlimited costs, without the recurring payments. That way you can be far more flexible with how you spend your money .
And do n’t forget, there are lots of ways to get Amazon Kindle books for exempt if you know where to look .
3. Kindle Unlimited Requires an Internet Connection
The best thing about the Amazon Kindle is that, unlike your telephone, it does n’t need to be charged every night or constantly connected to the internet to be utilitarian. If you use Kindle Unlimited, you lose some of this tractability .
With Kindle Unlimited you can entirely have 10 books checked out at once. While that sounds like a fortune, for many readers, this simply is n’t enough for an run period away from Wi-Fi .
For example, if you ‘re on vacation, you might get through a book a sidereal day. And if one or two books prove to be bore, or short, or any of a number of other things, then those 10 books wo n’t stretch to a week .
That means that at some period you will be off hunting for a room to connect my Kindle to the internet .
4. Amazon Prime Is a Better Deal
If you ‘re an Amazon Prime subscriber you already have access to Kindle Unlimited ‘s library for free. You can merely take out one book a month, but if there are a few titles you want to check out without paying for them, it ‘s a becoming room to do it.
Amazon Prime has lots of benefits, and it ‘s worth signing up for tied without the spare ebooks on crack .
Unless you ‘re ripping through self-published Kindle Exclusives, an Amazon Prime subscription costs less and offers countless other benefits like loose transport, great Amazon Prime television shows, and the underestimate Amazon Prime Music streaming service .
5. Other Ebook Services Are Better
While Oyster was acquired by Google, Scribd is inactive about and for $ 9.99/month you can read three books and listen to one audiobook. You ‘ll find books from bestselling authors like Stephen King or Walter Isaacson available for you to download .
You ca n’t use your Kindle to read books you take out on Scribd—you need to use a world wide web browser or an io or Android device—but that seems to be a fair tradeoff for access to a far better library. If you want to sign up for an ebook subscription service that ‘s actually good, Scribd might be a better option than Kindle Unlimited .
Wait for the Larger Publishers to Join Kindle Unlimited
Kindles are amazing and ebooks are the future, and there are plenty of other ways you can get more out of your e-reader. But even though Kindle Unlimited is a great mind, it ‘s constantly going to lack the books most people want to read until the “ big Five ” publishers come on control panel .
If you silent want to give it a attempt now, you can constantly sign up for a 30-day Kindle Unlimited loose trial to see if you like it or not .
Where to Buy Ebooks : 10 Online Ebook Stores Worth Using
There are enough of places to buy ebooks online other than Amazon ‘s Kindle Store. hera are the best on-line ebook stores .
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About The Author
Dan Price
( 1611 Articles Published )
Dan joined MakeUseOf in 2014 and has been Partnerships Director since July 2020. Reach out to him for inquires about patronize contented, affiliate agreements, promotions, and any early forms of partnership. You can besides find him roaming the show shock at CES in Las Vegas every year, say hello if you ‘re going. Prior to his writing career, he was a Financial Consultant.
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