Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
I'm not in KU right now.
I simply don't have the eyeball hours to justify the reads on top of the BAEN bundles, Kindle First, and occasional freebies. (Say 5-6 a month, all Indie.) Plus Fallout4, where I've dabbled in mods to see how it works. And life. Life gets in the way.
My time use has changed a lot since 2010. I'm not even watching SyFy. 
2010 is when I decided I wasn't going to buy any more BPH titles and ended up buying no tradpub besides BAEN. I let SFBC and the other book clubs lapse and I've bought exactly one pbook since: a history of publishing up to the mid 90's. Couldn't get the ebook so I got a near pristine copy used for $5.
If I were back to reading 3-4 books a week like my mother still is I'd be all over KU. If I didn't have the other sources, I would jump at it. I did consider it for her but she's still covered.
I *am* devoting a bit of time to tracking KU because it is an interesting experiment. I never would've expected any subscription service to survive but KU has found a contrarian way to not only survive but thrive. It intentionally violates all conventional wisdom yet it keeps on growing. And growing. It's a weird beast.
And now it's spawned a junior version which is interesting in its own right. The implications behind PR are pretty telling, if you stop to think about.
(Hint:look at the PR catalog. Try to pick out bad covers, bad blurbs, bad reviews... It's a showcase of non-tradpub quality.)
Sneaky, huh? |
Thank you for this very in depth answer. It explains a lot of why you write posts the way you write them. I mean, it sounds like you say it how it is, but I believe it takes enough passion to embrace changes. Changes that are no doubt happening even though there is still some in denial. The old stronghold and monopoly of the big 5 is dwindling. Readers are changing (the people, not the devices). I mean, not everybody is going to change their ways, but many new readers have the option now. For older books we are still mostly dependent on the old system.
Yes, who would have forseen that KU is thriving and expanding the way it is. The introduction of Prime Day created some extra Prime members. Some of those may later become readers, because they can since it is free to try out with Prime Reading. And if they don't turn into readers then there is enough other free entertainment options in Prime.
I can also understand that KU is only interesting to pay for when you have enough time to read enough.