Amazon Prime Reading

[jeffery]

Originally Posted by jhowell

From the Press Release:



Sort of a Kindle Unlimited lite.

Kindle unlimited is already lite, it mainly includes amazon published books and nothing that retails over $9.99 that I have seen. You won't find books from major publishers in kindle unlimited.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by jeffery

Kindle unlimited is already lite, it mainly includes amazon published books and nothing that retails over $9.99 that I have seen. You won't find books from major publishers in kindle unlimited.

And proud of it.

[Plumadona]

Taking a quick look, it seems that there are fewer books through Prime than Kindle Owners Lending Library or is it me?

[Atunah]

Originally Posted by Plumadona

Taking a quick look, it seems that there are fewer books through Prime than Kindle Owners Lending Library or is it me?

A lot fewer. Last time I checked there were only a little over 1000 total, including magazines. On the other hand its curated. I am hoping for KU to end up being a big curated thing. I have prepaid till July, I will see how this develops until then.

I only see 25 books in my preferred genre as of now so it will not replace KU for me quite yet. There are publishers in KU, not the big 5 no, but others are.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

And proud of it.

Just curious. I believe you never specifically said so, but are you getting your money's worth from KU? (If you are subscribed that is, which I believe you have not revealed as well)

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by lkmiller

Yes, only the primary Prime member. As a secondary member, you can get Kindle Owners' Lending Library (still only 1 book per month per Prime membership), but apparently not this. I'm on my husband's membership.

Can you share Prime Reading (Or Kindle Unlimited?) books with Family Library?

I'm not having much luck finding any Lending Library books anymore -- seems like there used to be a lot of titles? Or was I just extremely lucky?

EDIT: My mistake. They borrowing feature is available on my Kindle Touch.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Plumadona

Taking a quick look, it seems that there are fewer books through Prime than Kindle Owners Lending Library or is it me?

Has the Prime thing replaced the Lending Library? I liked having one book I could choose from a much larger selection of books.

EDIT: Never mind. Now I remember that you actually have to be using a Kindle device before you can borrow the free books.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Just curious. I believe you never specifically said so, but are you getting your money's worth from KU? (If you are subscribed that is, which I believe you have not revealed as well)

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?

[DuckieTigger]

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.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

...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.

The way I've come to see it the real divide isn't digital vs print nor indie vs tradpub but rather BPHs vs everybody else. The BPHs have created a consumer-hostile author-predation regime (witness their enthusiastic embrace of Author Solutions) that seeks to destroy and assimilate smaller tradpubs. That is good for nobody but them.

People who willing make less money just to make sure I pay for for the same product are not people who will get any money from me. That simple. BAEN is a trapub. APub is a tradpub. I have no beef with either. And, while I don't enjoy what the BPHs do to their employees, I do enjoy their squirming every time one of their schemes backfire. It'll be a long time before we're totally free of them but their increasingly reduced influence is a good trend.

So, ebook adoption: great.
KU, great for the heavy readers who can take advantage.
Prime Reading, an interesting funnel to get Prime subscribers hooked on digital.

The future is coming whether you like it or not. I prefer to scope out the terrain and position myself to suvive. It's not just ebooks, either.

Six months ago I dropped Cable TV (since I'm not watching SyFy it made no sense). So far,so good.

And the winds blowing out of CBS and CW suggest there are big changes coming to TV.

[Atunah]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

I'm not in KU right now.


(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?

I would love for regular KU be this curated. A KU where every book that is allowed in, has been looked at by a person and checked for obvious things.
Would be less titles sure, instead of a sea of 1,000,000, there might be just a curated lot of 50,000. But it would make it so much easier to find something in the program and I also think it would get more subscribers that way.
And no more having to scroll by scamlets, cheatlets and covers that look like a cat made it.

When I first saw PR, I wondered if at some point in the future the two will meet and merge. I am paid up till July for KU, I will reassess then. For now, I find plenty to read in it, but I did have to built up wishlists as browsing for titles is impossible for reason I mentioned above. I can't for example look up new stuff in the program. If its not on my wishlist, I won't see it.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Atunah

I would love for regular KU be this curated. A KU where every book that is allowed in, has been looked at by a person and checked for obvious things.
Would be less titles sure, instead of a sea of 1,000,000, there might be just a curated lot of 50,000. But it would make it so much easier to find something in the program and I also think it would get more subscribers that way.
And no more having to scroll by scamlets, cheatlets and covers that look like a cat made it.

When I first saw PR, I wondered if at some point in the future the two will meet and merge. I am paid up till July for KU, I will reassess then. For now, I find plenty to read in it, but I did have to built up wishlists as browsing for titles is impossible for reason I mentioned above. I can't for example look up new stuff in the program. If its not on my wishlist, I won't see it.

Amazon is not going to filter KU any time soon. No more than they are going to filter the Kindle store: one person's dreck is the next's fun read.

However, they could leverage goodreads to provide KU-specific reading lists, a sort of book club/reading circle for each genre. But I wouldn't want Amazon to have that kind of kingmaker power. The best part of the Kindle ecosystem is its (more or less) level playing field.

I think policing scams and reviews is as far as they should go.

[DuckieTigger]

KU is curated if you stick to the lists that are n your face on the KU page. Browse the whole catalog and that initial filter goes away. Books are somewhat linked, so the books from the lists let you find other books that are close(ish) by the recommendations below. Don't want "censor"? Then browse whole catalog.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Amazon is not going to filter KU any time soon. No more than they are going to filter the Kindle store: one person's dreck is the next's fun read.

However, they could leverage goodreads to provide KU-specific reading lists, a sort of book club/reading circle for each genre. But I wouldn't want Amazon to have that kind of kingmaker power. The best part of the Kindle ecosystem is its (more or less) level playing field.

I think policing scams and reviews is as far as they should go.

It's never been about a level playing field, but rather about pushing expenses onto someone else, i.e. the Walmart model. Amazon's decision to push the maintenance of their book catalogue onto the publishers makes finding books that I want to read a lot more difficult. But since they are all about driving people towards books they want to sell (i.e. bigger profits for them), they rather obviously don't care about that.

It would be fairly easy for them to add the ability to filter books much better, but apparently they don't consider it a priority.

Thus I rarely bother trying to scan to see what new books are out there. Instead, I use authoralert to tell me when an author that I like has a new book out, and occasionally search for specific authors to see if any new backlist books are out.

[Josieb1]

Assuming that one day this roles out to the UK does anyone have an experience of how this works with mutiples kindles registered to a Prime member. Hubby and I share an Amazon account, could we both borrow books at the same time on our own kindles or tablets?