Amazon Prime

New for Prime Members: Free Reading

Free-Reading

 

Amazon sweetened the deal for U.S. Prime Members even more: Add one more perk to Amazon’s Prime subscription service: They recently unveiled “Prime Reading”, which gives Prime subscribers to the $99/yr service access to more than 1,000 Kindle books, as well as magazines and other published works for free.  

Unlike Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, Prime Reading titles can be read on any Kindle e-reader or Fire tablet, or using the Kindle reading app for iOS or Android.  A Fire or Kindle device is not required.

Books including Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone and The Hobbit are available, as well as travel guides from Lonely Planet.  Amazon’s new Prime Reading gives Prime members all they can read from these 1.000 Kindle bestsellers.

It’s more or less a version of Kindle Unlimited with a pared down catalog – KU boasts over a million books, magazines and audiobooks – but without any additional cost if you’re already a Prime member.  Prime Reading is currently available for customers with a U.S. country of residence.
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To Borrow a Book Using Your Prime Reading benefits:

  • Go to the Kindle Store at https://www.amazon.com/primereading
  • Locate a title that you’d like to borrow, and then view the product detail page for that title.
  • Select the option to borrow the book for free with Prime Reading, and then select the device or Kindle reading app you’d like to read the title on.
  • Tip: You can also click the option to borrow the book for free with Prime Reading from the Kindle Store on the Kindle app for iOS or Android, as well as Kindle e-readers and Fire tablets.

The magazine selection included, sounds even more appealing: titles such as the National Geographic Traveler, People, Sports Illustrated, Popular Mechanics among others.  Prime Reading content can be accessed either via the Kindle app or Amazon’s own Kindle devices.
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USA TODAY wrote:
“Prime Reading is among several book initiatives tied to Amazon’s Kindle.  The Kindle Owners Lending Library allows owners of a Kindle to download one book a month.  There’s also Kindle First, where users choose one of six new books to read before its official release.  Kindle Unlimited is Amazon’s spin on the Netflix model, where users can download and read one of thousands of books for a monthly subscription fee.  Unlimited is separate from Amazon Prime.”
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My first thought was:
If you have Kindle Unlimited subscription you might as well cancel it as a result of this launch – but it probably isn’t the most desired outcome for Amazon.  Even with the smaller content library there’s a lot offered for casual browsing.

If you are a Prime member, did you check out the book and magazine selection yet?