Will you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited?

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Atunah

You say that the big 5 get paid their regular rate, but they aren't participating in the program. There are some smaller publishers in it like Open road and some Sourcebooks I believe, but no Penguin, Harpercollins, random, S&S.

If they could get a couple of the big 5, this would be fantastic. They can do like they do on Scribd. Not having the newest books in the program, but back list titles. That would be fine with me.

Well, let's see, how about the ads on the front page of KU?

• Life of Pi -- published by Knopf Canada, a subsidiary of Random House (ebook seems to be done by HMH)
• Harry Potter -- published by Pottermore, which is fairly big on its own
• The Hunger Games trilogy -- published by Scholastic. Not one of the Big 5, but still pretty big. A major publisher.
• The Lord of the Rings -- published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid - published by Abrams Books, which is part of Hachette Book Group USA (not sure of the precise connections)
• The Princess Bride -- published by another subsidiary of HMH

All (and more) are published by so-called "real" publishers, big ones, and I am pretty sure they receive full sale price from KU & KOLL. Only KDP gets limited to the joint pool.

I shouldn't have said "Big 5".

Hachette seems to be cheating, though, depending on what this connection with HBG USA is...

[DuckieTigger]

Last time I looked (maybe 2 weeks ago?) there was 634k total titles, just now I seen KU has 677k total titles. KU is now slowly starting to cost money so maybe that has something to do with the increase?

[DuskyRose]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Because they won't be free anymore.
One purpose of KU is to do away with permafree titles.
One thing many publishers have noticed is that free loss-leaders aren't driving sales the way they used to.

They're not all free, although a lot of freebies I see coming down the line also belong to KU.

I signed up for the 30 day free trial, and have four days left. So far this first month I've read $45.71 cents worth of books from the program. They were various prices, but none of the ones I've chosen so far are free.

I do expect that the freebies will ultimately die off, leading people to the KU program. While people may switch back to library loans, there are still books there that 1) aren't in my library and 2) would cost me money to read.

I still have over 90 books listed on my Amazon KU wishlist, most with prices attached. So, until that well runs dry, it seems to be a good deal for me.

Whether it'll work for enough people to keep it going, will remain to be seen.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Last time I looked (maybe 2 weeks ago?) there was 634k total titles, just now I seen KU has 677k total titles. KU is now slowly starting to cost money so maybe that has something to do with the increase?

Books under KDP SELECT are automatically added to KU but 43K more titles is a bit more than typical SELECT month by month growth. Still, I have heard of quite a few indies pulling titles from Smashwords and other distributors to get into KU to see how it plays out for them.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by DuskyRose

Whether it'll work for enough people to keep it going, will remain to be seen.

Whether it works for author/publishers also remains to be seen.
KU is one giant experiment.

[Atunah]

It will take some time for this to level out. Right now everyone is still on the free trial. I am up on the 21st for the first month. Can't recall now when it was first available. I don't think I waited very long. So its a new thing to play with right now for many. I think 3-6 months is when it will settle in.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Atunah

I am up on the 21st for the first month. Can't recall now when it was first available. I don't think I waited very long.

Start date was 18 Jul. That's when I signed up. First billing date is 17 Aug (30 days).

[dengar]

I dont mind if they have only certain series there. The authors do need to make their money. I do think however that if they do list a series on Unlimited, it should be complete.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Not on a series basis, no.

But how many authors have *all* their books there?
(There's quite a few but they are a small minority. And, depending on the per-read payout they may end up being even smaller as time moves on.)

And it's not a "scam" to offer up loss leaders to build up a fan base.
But building up a fanbase is generally done with the idea of making them "paying" customers.

That is the logic behind most marketting moves and things like staircase pricing of series titles.

[Luffy]

I can't access it anyway.

[booklover6]

I just cancelled. I can still get new books until tomorrow (billing date). So if you want to cancel early, you can still use the service until the end of the trial period.

[DuskyRose]

Originally Posted by dengar

I dont mind if they have only certain series there. The authors do need to make their money. I do think however that if they do list a series on Unlimited, it should be complete.

I think that should be up to the author to decide. I have no problem with giving the first few in a series away, and then having the rest cost money. One free ebook should be enough to tell a reader if they want to pay for more, and how much.

I'd rather that an author be comfortable in presenting a few of their series at a lower price, what ever KU pays, and keep the rest outside the KU, than to decide to post none of their books there because they don't think the advertising value is worth it to them.

I do, however, appreciate it when the first few in the series are free, in a row. I'm not so hot on those who offer every odd, or even, books for free or reduced price, with the in between book higher. It bothers me if I can't read a series in order, since I'm all for character development I can follow. So unless I'm already sold on buying book #1 anyway, offering book #2 for free or greatly reduced won't get me to try the series out.

Otherwise, I don't think Amazon should tell a writer that it's 'all or nothing' with their books in the KU program. Very often I think they'd end up with 'nothing'.

[faithbw]

Originally Posted by booklover6

I just cancelled. I can still get new books until tomorrow (billing date). So if you want to cancel early, you can still use the service until the end of the trial period.

I also cancelled early. Even though I have the option to still use it until the billing date, there just isn't a much of a selection of books that I'm actually interested in. For now, I'm sticking with the public library, even if that means I have to wait a bit for books. That's ok with me since I'm not the fastest reader around.

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by faithbw

I also cancelled early. Even though I have the option to still use it until the billing date, there just isn't a much of a selection of books that I'm actually interested in. For now, I'm sticking with the public library, even if that means I have to wait a bit for books. That's ok with me since I'm not the fastest reader around.

Free is best. I was hoping that when I cancelled, I would get some sort of discount offer to stay with the program, but no dice. $9.99 is just too much for the books available. Netflix, which my kids use daily, is only $8 a month and they have a huge catalog. If Netflix doesn't have it, we wait, or rent, or buy.

Hey why don't they rent ebooks? I guess 24 or 48 hour book rentals wouldn't be too practical.

[DuskyRose]

Originally Posted by booklover6

Hey why don't they rent ebooks? I guess 24 or 48 hour book rentals wouldn't be too practical.

Wouldn't work for me. That's why I shy away from libraries and didn't much care for the 2 week loan kindle program.

I don't like reading on someone else's time table. Makes it feel like work at times to read when I'm not really in the mood.

[tubemonkey]

I'm now unsubscribed. I never read any of the books. I was only in it to get a free Audible credit.