A few months ago, I signed up for Kindle Unlimited and took advantage of their thirty day trial. It helped that all the historical romances of a particular author were offered on Kindle Unlimited, and I plowed through all of them. After going through those titles, I then started looking around for other historicals to read, and I've found enough to keep me occupied for a total of four months. I decided last week to end my subscription to this particular service, although I might sign up again at another time in the future.
On the surface, Kindle Unlimited looks as if it offers a fantastic deal: over 750,000 titles on any device for $9.99/month. It is essentially a lending library. The user must subscribe to it in order to have access to its titles. Only 10 books can be checked out at a time. If an additional book is desired, one of the previous 10 must be returned. Amazon keeps track of the titles that are borrowed, and can even bookmark the location at which a reader stops in the book, for future reference, if one borrows the book again. The borrowed titles can stay in your library for as long as you subscribe to the service.
I must confess that I really milked out the number of books that I read for the first month and a half that I was using the service, because during that time I read almost 2-3 novels in a day. Yes, you read that correctly. I, ah, (clears throat sheepishly) sort of put the rest of my life on hold for a few weeks to go through that particular author's catalogue. My excuses were that these books were on the short side, I had a free month with Kindle Unlimited, and that I wouldn't be able to find all of her titles available altogether in one location, even in a public library, as I could find them at that time on Amazon. Also, I had the impression that the titles would only be up for an extremely limited amount of time before being rotated out and being replaced by other offerings. It was too much of a temptation to resist, so my regular life got pre-empted. I got through most of her backlist during that time, but I probably could have read her books at a more leisurely pace, because her titles are still offered on the Kindle Unlimited library four months later.
I haven't reviewed any of that particular author's titles on the blog; I had considered it for awhile, but decided not to. However, I did read some books from Kindle Unlimited which I reviewed for the blog. The Heirs of Anton series, including Ekaterina, Nadia, Marina, and Oksana (written by Susan May Warren, and Susan K. Downs) were some titles which I read during my four month experiment with the service. I found some other titles which I did not review such as the Squeaky Clean Mystery Series by Christy Barritt, the Seasons of Hope Series by Jessica R. Patch, and the Pacific Shores Series by Lynette Bonner. I enjoyed Straight and True: A Regency Novella by Justice Joy.
However, as I mentioned before, just because those titles were offered at the time that I read them, does not mean that the titles are still available, and if they are, they might not be available at some future date. Kindle Unlimited adds and removes titles periodically, but I haven't figured out what sort of schedule exists for this. When I first heard of Kindle Unlimited, there were a number of titles by Susan May Warren that were available through the library such as ones belonging to the Christiansen Family Series, but by the time I signed up for the service a number of months later, they were no longer available.
My experience with Kindle Unlimited has also been limited mainly to the romance section. I've read a couple of titles outside of that category, perhaps from the Science Fiction and Fantasy category, but most of my selections were from historical and contemporary romance. I've come to the point where I have read most of what I would be interested in unless there is a change soon in the selection of titles to choose from. There isn't a huge dearth of titles that are by best selling authors, although at the time of this writing there are titles available by J. K. Rowling and Suzanne Collins. The experience has given me a chance to read authors and titles that I've probably wouldn't have considered reading before. However, there have been titles that are both offered on Kindle Unlimited and on Kindle's freebie list (the latter has a quicker turnover in title availability compared to the former). If you are patient enough, a title might show up on the freebie list and you can download the book without subscribing to Kindle Unlimited.
Would I recommend Kindle Unlimited to someone else? The answer is: I'm not sure if I would give an outright, "yes," or, "no." For me to say, "yes," it would depend on what is currently available on the borrowing list, and how many titles I could get through in a month. Frankly, my opinion is that in most categories, my local public library has a more attractive selection of books to choose from. Kindle Unlimited caught me this time because it presented practically the entirety of a particular author's historical backlist that was and is still not available to me through the public library. After reading through that backlist, I found that frequently, I would check out a book, and them promptly return it because I didn't feel engaged enough to continue reading it. I suspect that this is partly because many of the selections available on Kindle Unlimited in its fiction department are by self published authors whose work may not be as closely scrutinized as if they would be if they worked with a traditional publishing house. In that case, their books would likely go through a more stringent editorial process checking for grammatical and factual errors. Spending $9.99/month for borrowing privileges over books that are lacking in readability just doesn't make sense to me. However, there are some gems and interesting books that are available; you just have to dig for them. Also, I did find some authors whose work I will look out for in the future.
As I mentioned before, the number of titles that I could get through a month would also play a significant factor as to whether I sign up for the service again in the future. I'm used to free library services (I've been spoiled by the public library system here, although, technically, it's not really free because of taxes), so if I spend money on books, I would like having permanent access to it. I'd have to judge whether the money would be better spent on a single title that I'd own and can read anytime in the future, versus taking the opportunity offered by Kindle Unlimited. Ideally, I think that I'd like to be able to borrow at least 8 to 12+ titles each month that I couldn't borrow elsewhere, and yes, there are titles offered on Kindle that are not available through the public library. This number to justify subscribing to the service may differ with other readers because there really are other ways to get access to books they want to read.
I appreciated having my experience with Kindle Unlimited, but think that I won't regret ending my subscription for now. If the service sounds interesting to you, try the free one-month trial and see for yourself if Kindle Unlimited is for you. At this time, Kindle Unlimited is available through Amazon in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Mexico, and Canada.
