I’ve now had a chance to test out the trial and all is going well. I have a stack of reading, downloading these books has been very simple but I have started to get the feeling that Kindle Unlimited is not so unlimited.
If you were considering doing the Kindle Unlimited free trial in order to download lots of books, cancel the subscription and enjoy your reading at a later date you will be a little disappointed. The limit is set at 10 downloads at any one time; you can return books to free up space for further downloads but be aware that when you cancel the trial, all your Kindle Unlimited books will disappear. They will, of course, remain if you decide to take the paid subscription after the trial period has ended.
Although the books will disappear, any notes, bookmarks or highlights you might have made will be saved to your Amazon account. The theory is that these will be available if you buy the books or take out a Kindle Unlimited subscription and download it at a later date.
Maybe a way to judge whether you want to keep going with the paid subscription (currently at £7.99 – Jan 2016) is perhaps to compare your reading wish list to Kindle Unlimited and see if the titles are offered. Most people sign up to save money I guess, but running a few calculations, I don’t think I can consume a book fast enough to really save a lot of money. The vast majority of books listed in Kindle Unlimited sell at $4.99 or less and there doesn’t seem to be a whole load of best sellers on offer. I tend to read novels at around 1-2 a month (not all are Kindle books) so I would be breaking even at best.
If you are an Amazon Prime customer, you may wish to consider the Kindle On-Line Lending Library as an alternative, it’s part of the Prime Subscription and you don’t have to return books! If I was a Prime customer this might suit my personal circumstances a little better, I could borrow a book and get around to reading it at some point without paying any more for that privilege.
So, I enjoyed browsing what was on offer and discovered a few new authors but I suspect I will not be signing up for Unlimited, it just doesn’t suit my reading habits. I know there are people out there who consume books a lot faster than I can so this might be a good option for them. Amazon are very good at telling you the benefits of a feature if it is positive, I had to hunt around to find out the not so positive stuff e.g. the 10 book limit download.
If you do sign up for the free trial, Amazon will assume that you want to continue with Unlimited and pay the subscription, it’s down to you to cancel the trial before its end date. This date is made very clear by Amazon as is the need for you to cancel if you do not wish to continue with a paid subscription.
My own Kindle publication is currently priced at $3.99 which equates to £2.80, I do offer it on Kindle Unlimited and have been pleased with the income generated, I donate all royalties to www.criduchat.org.uk. Although the download is ‘free’, I get paid per page read for the first time. Additionally, it gets my book out into the readers’ hands, with luck they will like it and talk about it to other people. The more people who recommend it, the more paid downloads will result (fingers crossed).
But don’t take my word for it, have a look and see what you think, just click the cover image!
If you fancy having a look at the trial, click here.
