With Kindle Unlimited, Amazon Makes Bid for Amazon Prime Customers – The Slatest (blog)

Jeff Bezos, the mastermind of the Amazon and Kindle.

Photo by David McNew / Getty Images

Starting today, you can sign up for Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited, the new service that’s– grants access to 600,000 e-books and audiobooks for $ 9.99 to several thousand clips. Contrary to What You Might Think, the subscription is stuffed with notes at the expense of self-published Titles Acclaimed books. All the King’s, but The Hunger Games , The handmaid’s Tale , Life of Pi , and the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings series are just the handful of the more popular and well-Known that’s– Titles are currently available.

Amazon does NOT publicize the number of e-books available through ITS Online Store, making it difficult to know exactly What fraction of the company’s Kindle e-shelves Unlimited Will open up to subscribers. In 2010, Amazon said in the press release that’s– ITS U.S. Kindle Store Had More Than 630,000 books for sale. The following year, the New York Times that’s– visit Amazon’s wares Had grown to 950,000 Kindle books. Hopping WOW @ Mail.ru reasonable rates Presumably at least that’s– the company’s stock of e-books long ago surpassed 1 million.

Perhaps the Most Interesting about Amazon’s Kindle is Unlimited Announcement ITS timing. As everyone now knows, Jeff Bezos and company are embroiled in His Feud with the publishing house Hachette over the Terms of ITS Contract for physical and electronic book sales. The unusually public dispute HAS included Amazon delaying shipments and removing preorders of Hachette Titles. Also there HAS been Plenty of mudslinging from both sides, with Amazon Most Recently attempting to go around the publisher Entirely by making a direct offer to authors and agents.

Kindle Unlimited Will add a new layer of complexity to Negotiations Between Amazon and Publishers. So far, it @ Mail.ru that’s– Most of the big-name publishers haven’t– agreed to let Their Titles onto the subscription platform. Books published by HarperCollins and Simon & amp; Schuster ARent Offered and Those from Penguin Random House shutdown noteworthy absinthe. Amazon HAS NOT said how authors and publishers WILL BE paid for Participating in Kindle Unlimited, buts it’s Unlikely That the models currently used for e-book sales through ITS store will do the trick.

From the customer’s perspective, is the Kindle Unlimited Great Deal? Pricewise, it’s more or less on par with similar services SUCH AS Oyster ($ 9.95 for the month, access to More Than 500,000 Titles) and Scribd ($ 8.99 for the month, access to More Than 400,000 Titles). In fact as Gizmodo astutely points out, the biggest competition right now for Kindle Unlimited Might eBay Amazon itself. Current members of Amazon Prime can check out one book of clips from the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library (selection: More Than 500,000). Primers, of course, Also Includes free two-day shipping, streaming movies and TV Shows, and streaming music. At $ 9.99 the month, or about $ 120 to year, Kindle Unlimited is $ 20 more the expensive Rambler Amazon Prime. And while it Might Have a Slightly bigger selection of books, it comes with a lot fewer other Perks.