Kindle Unlimited - worthwhile?

Orangebottom

Hi all, am a novice kindler and assumed it would be cost effective to subscribed to Amazon's Kindle Unlimited. Only I can't see anything in there I would like to read. Before I assume I just need to get a he books I actually want, rather than because they are in offer on unlimited, thought I'd see how others have got one. I tried searching by author eg Ann Patchett and genre, neither seemed to either be available or flat my boat. Thoughts,?

I use a Kindle quite a lot, particularly when travelling, but I've never subscribed to Unlimited for much the same reason. Whenever I look through what's available, the books I actually want to read rarely seem to be included. In the end I'd rather pay for a book I've chosen than read something simply because it's part of the subscription.

I use Borrowbox. Allied to my local library and totally free,

Pinkrinse

Get in touch with your local library, mine does a free online lending service. Amazing!

I was just about to mention that. Most libraries offer ebooks. If you don’t know how to do it, take your device with you to your branch or ask a grandchild.

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

Get in touch with your local library, mine does a free online lending service. Amazing!

My free books come on the county library borrow box. Sometimes I buy books on Kindle at less that £5 usually 99p

Thanks for the reminder about using Alexa to read Kindle books. Saves a lot of money instead of using apps like Speechify or Peech.

Remember too you get lots of magazines to read with KU.

do not forget that if you have an Alexa enabled gadget she will read any book you have in your kindle library . I listen to her every night when I go to sleep, if I cannot sleep in the night and if I waken too early to get up . You can set a sleep timer to stop it playing after as long as you want. I find her voice nicer to listen to then some books I have bought on Audible some are so American .

Borrow box is the library version . Free as long as you belong to a library. It down loads to phone to read or audio book .

UK
I have a kindle that I use weekly if not daily, but I no longer have Unlimited, mainly because I don’t think I read enough books to justify it, that said I can still access a wide range of books that are free and/or very cheap. I also follow Joffe books who give one book a week free
Whilst I can’t read them on my basic kindle I can also borrow library e-books for free and read them in my tablet

I love using KU. Very poor eyesight. I'm a crime/thriller reader.
I narrow the search down to crime and yesterday there were over 60k books to choose from. I try new authors to me and have read some great books.
One of the things I do is keep a record of books I'd like to read and check this every other month and occasionally they are on the free list.
There is also borrow box from the library. But the ones on there are a few years old.

Of course I understand that for those with poor eyesight, Kindle is a godsend…

Am I going to make myself really unpopular if I say that you can’t beat a real book, whether borrowed from the library or purchased from a charity shop?

yellowcanary

If you are an Amazon Prime member you also get a free book (sometimes two) every month out of a choice of about 9/10 and a bonus book as well.

The email comes at the start of every month and is headed First Reads.

There's usually a varied selection for different tastes, and as they are free you can try different genres.

I find they are so based on American taste I seldom bother to claim any.

for free

www.amazon.com/firstreads?tag=gransnetforum-21

BTW, you are aware Amazon offers First Reads the first day of every month, right?

1 or 2 books every month with your membership.

Personally I think it’s worthwhile. I’m an avid reader but don’t want to buy actual books all the time. I find there’s loads on KU. when I search the kindle store, I filter it to show KU only and find a huge choice. I also like that you can just return the book, if it isn’t your thing and look for something else. After a bit, it does keep prioritising books of a similar genre so you do have to actively widen your search. I also get daily bookbub emails which include KU. You may not always get access to the latest bestsellers but that doesn’t bother me. I would look some authors up and see if they’re included and then you can work out if it’d work for you.

If you are an Amazon Prime member you also get a free book (sometimes two) every month out of a choice of about 9/10 and a bonus book as well.

The email comes at the start of every month and is headed First Reads.

There's usually a varied selection for different tastes, and as they are free you can try different genres.

Our local library offers Borrow Box. Free app that gives access to wide range of online books. All free. Worth a look?

I like Bookbub and have read many great books from there.
If you like the classics, I recommend the Gutenberg Project, where the books are completely free and they genuinely want you to share them.
It's a bit "America heavy" as that's where it's based, but if you are looking for anything that is out of copyright, it's always worth a look there first.
When you find what you want, you can use the "Send to Kindle" app to send them to your Kindle library.

KU is a huge library you pay for, basically.

The issue with KU is that some authors are exclusive to Amazon - that's the key if KU is worth it to you and if you are going to read enough books a month to make it worth the price.

If you decide to buy the ebooks, some of those authors also have their own stores independently - which has the additional advantage of not having DRM attached to those files, meaning they are yours forever, vs just a temporal license.

Amazon offers a month for free if you want to try.

Also, on prime days, sometimes they offer 3 months free, if you cancel and not renew, they offer 3 more months for $9.99 vs $13.99/month.

Amazon daily deals and BookBub for 99p amd free books every day

I enjoy Kindle Unlimited. Sometimes posters here will recommend a book and I get it, if it's free. If it's something I really want to read then I will pay up to £4.99 but otherwise I can't justify it.

Sometimes I will do a search for a certain author, and again, their books are often free or £0.99, in which case I will buy.

I hadn't heard of Bookbub, so thank you, I will look it up.

Also www.thefussylibrarian.com/ send a regular email of books available