Limited Kindle Unlimited

[DNSB]

Currently I have 9 books on loan from KU. For the most part, I use KU to read books where I have a series recommendation but not sure if I am interested enought to warrant spending any money. For those cases, KU offers the ability to start reading without the financial investment. I have purchased books including the first book in a series when the KU read indicates that I will enjoy the books. OTOH, I have also dumped books 25-75 pages in when I find the book uninteresting. I have hit 60 books in one month from KU but, so far, have never exceeded that mystery limit (that month I ended up dropping a couple of sites where the recommendations were pretty much useless.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Currently I have 9 books on loan from KU. For the most part, I use KU to read books where I have a series recommendation but not sure if I am interested enought to warrant spending any money. For those cases, KU offers the ability to start reading without the financial investment. I have purchased books including the first book in a series when the KU read indicates that I will enjoy the books. OTOH, I have also dumped books 25-75 pages in when I find the book uninteresting. I have hit 60 books in one month from KU but, so far, have never exceeded that mystery limit (that month I ended up dropping a couple of sites where the recommendations were pretty much useless.

Since you do read a lot of books from KU, would you mind starting a thread on KU books and what you think of them? That would help a lot who belong to KU find some good books and avoid some bad ones.

One thing I tend to do is avoid KU eBooks that have a really bad cover.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Mistyfarm

There were a couple of decent titles on the issues I was looking for but there are a lot of very short (<10-40 pages), questionable to downright weird KU titles offered for "discerning" KU customers.

But I wasn't worried .... it was "Unlimited" right?

It sounds to me like Amazon is trying to have it both ways. Accepting "non-books" to up their Kindle Unlimited book count and then punishing Kindle Unlimited users for actually checking them out. If authors are scamming the system by publishing 10-40 page "books," then it's Amazon's fault for allowing this.

[Deskisamess]

If authors are scamming the system by publishing 10-40 page "books," then it's Amazon's fault for allowing this.

Google "Kindle Unlimited scam" or similar search words. It's well known that it happens.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

Google "Kindle Unlimited scam" or similar search words. It's well known that it happens.

Sounds like they need to police this a little better.

[haertig]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Since you do read a lot of books from KU, would you mind starting a thread on KU books and what you think of them? That would help a lot who belong to KU find some good books and avoid some bad ones.

One thing I tend to do is avoid KU eBooks that have a really bad cover.

That would be very helpful. I have found a few decent authors on KU. And a lot of bad ones. I shouldn't say "bad". "Not my cup of tea" would be a better way to say it.

I've only read one or two from each of these authors, so not a large sample size, but these KU authors were ones that I liked: Hugh Howey ("Wool", "Shift"), A.G. Riddle ("Departure"), Matthew Mather ("Cyber Storm"), Michael McBride ("Burial Ground", currently reading this one), Jeremy Robinson ("Pulse"). Jeremy Robinson appears to have pulled most of his books that used to be KU - they are still on Amazon, just not on KU any more.

[Froide]

Originally Posted by rcentros

It sounds to me like Amazon is trying to have it both ways. Accepting "non-books" to up their Kindle Unlimited book count and then punishing Kindle Unlimited users for actually checking them out. If authors are scamming the system by publishing 10-40 page "books," then it's Amazon's fault for allowing this.

FYI, individual magazine issues are counted in Amazon.com's Kindle Unlimited count. Therefore, to be more accurate, Amazon should change their terms from "maximum of 10 books" to "maximum of 10 items".

[John F]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

To my knowledge Alf's tools won't remove the DRM from KU books. I might be mistaken, but that's what I've heard. Of course, not all books have DRM.

I doubt this is true.

You can remove DRM from Kindle library ebooks. You can remove DRM from Prime Reading ebooks. ...

[Mistyfarm]

In the "old" days even public libraries didn't have a limit for quite a while. You can understand a limit for hardcopies now coz whilst it's sitting on the table of a book hog it's not available for other readers.

They did this to make for fair and equitable access to ALL borrowers. The library didn't automatically assume that you were making "photostats" of them (look it up kids).

Innocent until proven guilty surely? I first started by buying physical books aeons ago so I am a verified and identified customer.

I'm only a recent KU subscriber from last year and only just recently did a blitz (only 10 at a time) binge but I was looking for specific keyword hits, so I perfectly admit to large use.

What annoyed me was all the wasted time with support tickets before they finally fessed up and told me I'd been locked out. (Still even now - just tried it)

Some KU books were really good but others were absolute dross, some even only crappy front and back covers and just gibberish in between.

From what's been said above about well known existing scams etc from authors or Amazon, maybe we need to work out a MobileRead rating system to to leave as a review in KU for these crappy books?

If there's enough interest, maytbe it's worth it's own thread.

I propose a 0 to 5 or 10?

Eg "MobileRead Mistyfarm rates this title a 0"

Or maybe we'd just be doing the work they should be doing?

[latepaul]

Originally Posted by John F

I doubt this is true.

You can remove DRM from Kindle library ebooks. You can remove DRM from Prime Reading ebooks. ...

There is a check in the DeDRM tools for whether the books are borrowed or purchased and it quits with an error if they are not purchased.

Failed to decrypt with error: This book is licensed as KindleUnlimited. These tools are intended for use on purchased books.

I know KU count as borrowed not purchased. I would have thought the same applied to Prime Reading but I've never tested it.

[haertig]

When Kindle Unlimited has too much poor quality stuff, scams, etc. then a more effective response to Amazon might be to stop subscribing to Kindle Unlimited.

Personally, I have tried two KU trial membership promos - each was for "three months for 99 cents". I'm glad that they provided these trials, because I found out that for me, KU is worth right at "99 cents for three months". After each promo ended, I decided not to subscribe at the higher normal rate ($9.99 per month, is that what it is?) If another promo comes along that I am eligible for I will probably grab it since I have determined that 33 cents per month is reasonable payment for what they provide. Then most likely I'll cancel at the end of it again. Unless I find that they have added more of interest to me, so that the normal subscription price is justifiable. From a consumer (not an author) standpoint, I personally rate KU as very good in concept, good in execution, fair in content, and poor in pricing. But for a service like this I don't pay money for concept and execution, I pay for content. So the "only fair in content, and poor in pricing" pretty much nukes it for me. Except for cheap trial membership promos!

[issybird]

When I had Prime, I had a hard time coming up with even one book a month to borrow through KOLL (identical to the KU library, AFAIK). It wasn't worth the effort.

I realize that I'm not the typical KU reader, but there's an awful lot of dross there.

[ShortNet]

I enjoy my Kindle Unlimited account. I have found authors there that I wouldn't have tried otherwise. Some I've gone on to buy their books from Amazon - others I've read everything they have on KU and encouraged others to do so. So far this year I've only finished 38 KU books, but it is worth the price I paid (2 year contracts on Prime Day).

Honestly, the ability to pull up Harry Potter at no charge and hand my kindle over to a fussy 10 year old in the middle of a long car trip would have been worth the KU subscription alone.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by Mistyfarm

So what was I doing? I was trawling thru available KU titles on suicide, ptsd, depression and related subjects for a specific project I'm working.

I was looking for and did keyword searches for my current needs so I churned thru a quite few titles in April.

I suspect that this behaviour was your undoing, along with the quantity. It might have looked like you were skipping ahead in books to increase the page count for the titles, and thus increase the payout to the authors. The KU system is designed to reward authors who have their works read by subscribers, and they need people to read "normally" to get the balance right. The way you used it was "unfair" within their system.

[Deskisamess]

Originally Posted by issybird

When I had Prime, I had a hard time coming up with even one book a month to borrow through KOLL (identical to the KU library, AFAIK). It wasn't worth the effort.

I realize that I'm not the typical KU reader, but there's an awful lot of dross there.

Kindle Unlimited has about 50,000 books. Prime Reading has about 3,000.

I see no way to just sort books in the Kindle store for KOLL books. I think they would be the same as the Prime Reading books, but would lack the ability to be read on a Kindle app.

I've been doing ok with KU, but I like light clean fiction for my before bed and treadmill reading. I do have authors I avoid, and have started some books in KU that were dreadfully written. Many though lend themselves well to being read to me via voice over on my iPhone, as I'm working around the house. I can easily read 1 book a day doing this.

DRM can be removed from KU books just like any other Kindle book.