I do not receive a commission for any products in this post.
There are a lot of subscription programs out there – from magazines, to video services, to audio services, to audiobooks, even to things like diapers (thanks, Amazon). One of the things that all of that has in common is that Amazon is a player in all of it. For the person always on the move, these subscription services allow you access to a lot of content – without carrying it all with you!
There is something else great about the subscription services – cost savings. It gives you access to material that, to buy single copies of, would cost a lot more than just the subscription. I have used a variety of subscription services but the one I am really happy about is the newly-announced Kindle Unlimited program.
Kindle Unlimited
According to Amazon, the new Kindle Unlimited program is designed to let you “borrow” Kindle versions of over 600,000 books. That is not all of the books in Kindle format, but it does offer quite a bit more than is available in the Kindle Lending program.
The Kindle Lending Library is a feature only available on Kindle devices. It allows Amazon Prime members to borrow a book every month, but you can keep the book as long as you want (you just cannot borrow another until you have returned that one). It is a nice program, but somewhat limiting because I go through more than one book in a month. Also, to take advantage of the Kindle Lending Library, you have to have a Kindle and Prime and not everyone has those two things.
On the other hand, the Kindle Unlimited program is open to anyone at a non-contract price of $9.99 per month. Not only can you borrow as many books as you want, but you can read them on any device with the Kindle app! This is great news for people that use their tablets to read their Kindle books.
In addition to that, it also allows you to listen to unlimited audiobooks within that same library set. So, say you are in the middle of reading a book but you are going out for a run, you can sync it to the app on your phone and pick up where you left off. This is only available on marked books that say “Kindle Unlimited With Narration,” but is still a great function to have.
Thoughts?
Amazon will let you try it free for 30 days and after that, it will cost the $9.99 per month. You can cancel it at anytime. So, if you have a trip upcoming, you could activate it for that month to get a bunch of reading done and cancel it when you get home. I just went through my wishlist of Kindle books that I would like to buy at some point and many of them are available in this new program. Considering that some of those books range from $9.99 – $15, I can really get a great deal out of just signing up for the program instead of buying the book. Not only that, but if the book was not as good as I was hoping for, I did not put out money just to buy it. 🙂
I think this program has a lot of promise. It will be great to see Amazon add to it over time (which I am sure they will), but this is a great start. To me, this subscription program works great for the traveler and runner alike.
What do you think?
