Content Prime reading vs kindle unlimited

[stumped]

Is PR actually a sort of best of KU?. It claims to be carefully curated by...
If that can be trusted not to mean bribed to include.. then in some ways I am more attracted to a 1000 book collection than a 1million one.

I lack the time and the life expectancy to need 1m choices, and lack the patience to sort through them. I already pay for prime annually ,for the shopping and video perks.

A skim through what is in PR suggests that every book is from KU.
The only other difference, I think, is that PR may not work with kindle for pc, but that is no great loss. KU still does, I think, I.e. I have not seen any announcements to say otherwise

PR also includes some magazines. In theory they would look ok on my fire hdx, in practice I suspect they are so ad infested I will just get annoyed with the magazine layout approach and go back to my flipboard app instead.

Anyone here using either or both services and care to comment.
I am in UK, the PR choices may be better or different in other countries ?

Ps re the carefully curated... I take my free "kindle first" book each month from the carefully selected offer list as part of prime but looking back at those carefully selected offers, I see a trail of abandoned, did not like it... clutter in my kindle library. At least with PR I get to send it back and not have it in my collection. Yes I could go delete it from cloud but that feels like an electronic book burning...

[Atunah]

I have Ku and technically I have prime reading also since I have prime. But its moot when you have KU. But I can browse of course whats available and there isn't much in genres I read. But of course, prime reading doesn't cost anything extra if you have prime already. KU costs 9.99 a month unless you got one of those prepaid deals like I got a couple of years ago.

I agree with KU listings being pretty much a sewage.

Now I assume wishlists work the same in the UK than they do in the US. But what I have always done with KU and previously with KOLL was create wishlist/s. Those I can access on my kindles. So over some time I have a nice selection of my own vetted items on those wishlists. I have several by subgenre. When someone recommends a book and I see its on KU, I add it to the wishlist. I also use the goodreads integration on my kindle which gives me pretty good recs. The same is on kindles or website on amazon for KU. I gave up browsing the categories in KU as there is so much garbage and yes the 10 pagers still abound. They just got packed up into "box sets".

I would browse around KU for a while. See if you find stuff to add to a wishlist. Try using the recommendations via amazon and so on. If after a month of so you have some nice ones lined up to read, then you'll know if its worth paying. Or just using prime reading. If that selecting is enough for you.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Atunah

I have Ku and technically I have prime reading also since I have prime. But its moot when you have KU. But I can browse of course whats available and there isn't much in genres I read. But of course, prime reading doesn't cost anything extra if you have prime already. KU costs 9.99 a month unless you got one of those prepaid deals like I got a couple of years ago.

I agree with KU listings being pretty much a sewage.

Now I assume wishlists work the same in the UK than they do in the US. But what I have always done with KU and previously with KOLL was create wishlist/s. Those I can access on my kindles. So over some time I have a nice selection of my own vetted items on those wishlists. I have several by subgenre. When someone recommends a book and I see its on KU, I add it to the wishlist. I also use the goodreads integration on my kindle which gives me pretty good recs. The same is on kindles or website on amazon for KU. I gave up browsing the categories in KU as there is so much garbage and yes the 10 pagers still abound. They just got packed up into "box sets".

I would browse around KU for a while. See if you find stuff to add to a wishlist. Try using the recommendations via amazon and so on. If after a month of so you have some nice ones lined up to read, then you'll know if its worth paying. Or just using prime reading. If that selecting is enough for you.

So new tip: avoid unknown author box sets.

[Atunah]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

So new tip: avoid unknown author box sets.

pretty much. The worse are those that aren't advertised as box sets. But as one story, one cover, one title. With a nice amount of pages. Once you read reviews you find out its one short story with a bunch of others stuffed into the file. You know, "bonus". I am pretty much not looking at any unknown author anymore period that isn't with a publishing house. Unless they have come recommended to me by the trusted sources I use for such things.

You know all those pornlets that were around in the KU 1.0? Their "authors" basically took those, tacked on some HEA, put on a "normal" cover, so they think they can stuff them into romance and there they are. And lots of "bonus", yay.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Atunah

pretty much. The worse are those that aren't advertised as box sets. But as one story, one cover, one title. With a nice amount of pages. Once you read reviews you find out its one short story with a bunch of others stuffed into the file. You know, "bonus". I am pretty much not looking at any unknown author anymore period that isn't with a publishing house. Unless they have come recommended to me by the trusted sources I use for such things.

You know all those pornlets that were around in the KU 1.0? Their "authors" basically took those, tacked on some HEA, put on a "normal" cover, so they think they can stuff them into romance and there they are. And lots of "bonus", yay.

How well I remember those. I also remember telling more than one "author" that if we want porn we will look in e r o t I c a not in romance.
I don't mind either but put them where they effing belong.
Oh and just because the "rabbits" end up monogamous does not make it a romance.

I would also venture a guess that more than half of those now end with dingbat girl gets back together with the ex that made more than one pass at her friends.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

- - - -
I would also venture a guess that more than half of those now end with dingbat girl gets back together with the ex that made more than one pass at her friends.

If you have a plot that works, why change it?

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by knc1

If you have a plot that works, why change it?

Because I cannot stand that particular trope.
To me: it is lazy writing.
* note this is just my nowhere near humble opinion.

[booklover6]

Another tip--don't check out any books that have no reviews, unless you know the author. Especially if they are in the top 100 lists. Clear sign of a scam, IMO.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by booklover6

Another tip--don't check out any books that have no reviews, unless you know the author. Especially if they are in the top 100 lists. Clear sign of a scam, IMO.

Or all 5 star reviews in not so great English. (This may be more of a problem in non-fiction. )

[stumped]

thank for all the responses.
i rashly bought some of those humongous box sets compliations at 99p ( not having KU and thinking look how many pages you get for 99p ) & ended up skipping story after story - i think it was several volumes of the apocalyptic sets

last night I tried s a test search of : what is at amazon uk in KU with bitcoin in the title. Could not do it. I somehow did it once on the .com site & found 52, but could not repeat the process of getting "kindle unlimited" to appear in the department dropdown.
that was using browsers, when I try to do it in the kindle app on the fire it keeps showing me the sign up page and defuses to show me what's beyond the " sing up" door

so if anyone has a slick way to show at amazon.co.uk, only the KU or PR books that fit a search cirtieria, please pass on the tip

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by stumped

thank for all the responses.
i rashly bought some of those humongous box sets compliations at 99p ( not having KU and thinking look how many pages you get for 99p ) & ended up skipping story after story - i think it was several volumes of the apocalyptic sets

last night I tried s a test search of : what is at amazon uk in KU with bitcoin in the title. Could not do it. I somehow did it once on the .com site & found 52, but could not repeat the process of getting "kindle unlimited" to appear in the department dropdown.
that was using browsers, when I try to do it in the kindle app on the fire it keeps showing me the sign up page and defuses to show me what's beyond the " sing up" door

so if anyone has a slick way to show at amazon.co.uk, only the KU or PR books that fit a search cirtieria, please pass on the tip

Well I found you a dozen freebies by sorting price low to high but I could not find the kindle unlimited search anywhere. If I found a kindle unlimited, it just wanted me to sign up.
I was on the UK site.

[stumped]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Well I found you a dozen freebies by sorting price low to high but I could not find the kindle unlimited search anywhere. If I found a kindle unlimited, it just wanted me to sign up.
I was on the UK site.

that's exactly what happened to me, and even with the .com - going once via a google search results I got " kindle unlimited" in the department field, but when I loaded the .com the home page and tried to recreate that , it's not a department option.
Seems they don't want you to see what you subscribe to until you've bought it, and I have a feeling that the search options will not greatly improve after subscribing - maybe a subscriber will comment on that.

I think when i used my previous KU trial to read all about windows 10 for a month, I sorted on low to high and picked out the KU ones.

In better news I opened Kindle for PC and I could access the Prime reading books I've checked out. So that works, despite it not being listed as a device option in the blurb.

I also borrowed a mazagine ( Wired) as a test, from PR - you get a scaled down PDF, very pretty but totally unreadable even on the HDX 8.9 screen as there is no re-flow, no reading mode/show me just the text option. on a 6 inch kindle you'd need a microscope ! i'ts like going back 20 years to before e-reading was invented. So ! scratch that as a " benefit" / go buy shares in Flipboard!

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by stumped

so if anyone has a slick way to show at amazon.co.uk, only the KU or PR books that fit a search criteria, please pass on the tip

On Amazon US if I do a search in the Kindle Store I can click the Kindle Unlimited check box to narrow the results to KU titles only, but it doesn't look like they've implemented the check box on the UK site for some reason.

[stumped]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

On Amazon US if I do a search in the Kindle Store I can click the Kindle Unlimited check box to narrow the results to KU titles only, but it doesn't look like they've implemented the check box on the UK site for some reason.

yes, so a possible search strategy for a given topic is search over there. copy results via screen grabs into word, somehow, then return to track them down in the UK - tedious & that assumes the catalogues are similar ( I am sure they are not identical )

Another factor of interest will be how the "rotating" prime reading curated offers actually rotate e.g. how often new books rotate in. if they actively curate and swap out a genre faster than my reading speed then that could work, for me, for fiction.

what I should do, i suppose is screen grab a smallish PR genre, then check it weekly for changes.

if any one can link to articles on how the Prime Reading curation is actually done - e.g. is it really handpicked by humans who have actually read the books - that will be helpful

[knc1]

Or let an established service do it for you:
https://visualping.io/
https://www.changedetection.com/

And many, many more, ask your local web search engine about "web page monitor".