Kindle Unlimited, have you tried it yet?

Explore KU to see if it would add something extra to your reading life

Hi readers,

I remember when Kindle Unlimited began in 2014. I thought it was an interesting concept, and I was intrigued to be able to read as many books as I wanted to for one low price per month. I hadn’t yet discovered Overdrive/Libby (maybe these weren’t yet a thing in 2014), so I thought KU was the greatest invention for the reader. I soon learned that many of the books were romance (not my preferred genre), a lot were self-published reads—some of which could have used better writing and more editing and many authors and books that I’d never heard of before. Nonetheless, there was a significant discount if you signed up for a year, so I did, and I was off and running. I discovered many new authors to me based on my reading tastes at the time and still read some of those same authors to this day.

Things have changed somewhat over the years. More well-known authors are participating now than in the early days. Many authors who write for the Amazon imprints, such as Lake Union Publishing, Thomas & Mercer, Montlake, and others, are routinely featured in KU. Many older backlist books are showing up on KU as an additional way for authors to make money when the buzz dies down on their books after a few years. Sometimes authors will put the first book of the series in KU to generate interest for the remaining books in the series. Books move in and out of KU, as when they are in KU, the author can’t sell them on any other e-book platform. There are still a lot of books that the reader may not be interested in reading, but the KU search filters make it easy to sort for the type/genre of book you’d like to read. KU allows you to have up to ten books in your account at any one time, and many of the books also have Audible narration available for free with the e-book.

Listed below are authors known to many that have a few, some, or all of their books in KU:

• Action/Adventure/Military - Dean Koontz, Robert Dugoni, Nelson DeMille, Marc Cameron, Mary Stone, and David Archer

• Contemporary Fiction - Colleen Hoover, Kristin Hannah, Boo Walker, Glendy Vanderah, Catherine Ryan Hyde, Lily King, and Camille Pagan

• Historical Fiction - Kim Michelle Richardson, Rhys Bowen, Fiona Valpy, Marie Benedict, Mark Sullivan, and Kristina McMorris

• History - Rick Atkinson and Bill O’Reilly

• Law & Justice - Brian Shea, Paul Levine, Scott Pratt, and Sheldon Siegel

• Mystery/Thriller/Suspense - Melinda Leigh, Joe Hart, Louise Penny, Gregg Olsen, Kerry Lonsdale, Jack Slater, and Gregg Hurwitz

• Romance/Regency/RomCom - Jennifer Probst, Melissa Foster, Fern Michaels, Susan Mallery, Julie Garwood, and Kelly Harms

• Sci-fi/Dystopian - Martha Wells, J.N. Chaney, and K.A. Riley

• Children/Teens/Young Adult - J.K. Rowling, Rick Riordan, J.R.R. Tolkien, Lincoln Pierce, Marissa Meyer, James Dean, and Michael Wisehart

Kindle Unlimited also includes popular magazines such as People, Food & Wine, Men’s Health, Food Network, Popular Mechanics, etc. Magazines cycle in and out of KU like the e-books do. If you enjoy reading your favorites frequently and don’t have a print or digital subscription, this is an added benefit that keeps you from buying single issues at the store. Kindle Unlimited includes comics, too; I don’t read them, so I don’t know how popular or good the comics are.

You can try out Kindle Unlimited for free for one month (the reduced price of $4.99 for the second month), and if you don’t like it, you can cancel. If you decide you want a subscription, you can sign up for a monthly, 6, 12, or 24-month subscription here to reduce the cost to as low as $5.99 per month overall.

If you have never used the free trial on KU, I encourage you to try it. Spend the month trial discovering new to you books/authors, read a complete series by an author, or catch up on some of your favorite magazines. Amazon also has a program called Amazon Kids+ that offers subscription plans beginning at $2.99 per month (I believe you have to be an Amazon Prime member) to thousands of books, movies, TV shows, educational apps, and games. Parental controls allow for a balance between entertainment and education, screen time limits, and age-appropriate viewing for each child. I don't have a little one that uses this, but I’ve heard good things about Kids+ from parents/kids who subscribe to it.

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I get a lot of value from it, and I’ve kept my subscription going since it began in 2014. Some months I don’t read anything from it, and other months, I read 2 or 3 books. I frequently read magazines that I’ve let my print subscription lapse on as I don’t have time to read regularly. I’ve used it for research and skimmed/read dozens of books about a specific topic. I’ve also used it many times to read beloved author’s backlist again and again.

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I’d love to hear if you have tried out KU in the past and what you thought about it? Did you find it worthwhile or a waste of money for your reading tastes? Have you considered trying it or trying it again in light of my enthusiasm about it for my own reading life? I’d love to hear your thoughts about it; you can tell me in the comments below.

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Have a great week; don’t wait until the weekend to relax with a good book. Happy reading!

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