While this is a neat idea, 600,000 titles seems to me to be a small figure.
Amazon leaks Kindle Unlimited
231–240 of 240 posts
Re: Amazon leaks Kindle Unlimited
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
I bet Amazon, Apple, and B&N's Nook have data on how much people read. In fact, I know that Amazon tracks how much people read. They know how many copies are sold, what people bookmark, what page they are on, etc... I bet they have analytics somewhere that could tell you all kinds of amazing things about each book. That would be incredibly useful to an author that cared to dig into how people interact with their work…
Someone did a study recently using Kindle public highlights as a proxy for reading progress - not many books were finished :)
Sounds about right.
Re: Amazon leaks Kindle Unlimited
#233Lots of people in this thread are talking about this being scary for authors. When I was a kid, I got to read a ton of books any time I wanted. I got them at this place called a "library" where they let people come in and take books home with them to read for free . People have always had the option to read books without buying them. In those days, going to the library was effectively the same effort as going to a bo…
> free paid by taxes. nothing is free.
The use of it is free. It costs you no more to use the service than it would to not use it
Re: Amazon leaks Kindle Unlimited
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well known artists with a fanbase I'm sure are ok with charging $5, but authors spending years researching need that upfront money, and hopefully 25.99$ hardcover sales, followed by 7$ paperback sales. If they want to do this for a living I should say.
I'm curious to know how much of that $25.99 hardcover goes to the writer.
Not all, but enough that they are willing to sign a up front contract with a publishing company.
Re: Amazon leaks Kindle Unlimited
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
Last time Amazon gave me a free trial of Prime, I tried out the free rental. As best as I could make out, it was only possible to use it by browsing on my Kindle, which was a rather suboptimal experience, allowing only specific search or a paginated list of about 50,000 pages. I couldn't actually find anything I wanted to read.
If you know how to use Amazon's interface it's possible to see the list of books online so you don't have to do all the browsing on the Kindle, but you still have to 'buy' it from the Kindle. It's sort of a hidden link or a special way of narrowing search results with the criteria on the left side of the page. If you google I'm sure you can find instructions.
You can buy it from your phone or computer. Even if it is a Mac. You pick which device you want it sent to. And I totally don't get that y'all are saying ebooks cost more than trad.and "awful" selection? What don't they have?
Re: Amazon leaks Kindle Unlimited
#236"Access to a huge panoply of books that are either in public domain or for which we're pretty sure most of you wouldn't pay for anyway!"
Re: Amazon leaks Kindle Unlimited
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you know how to use Amazon's interface it's possible to see the list of books online so you don't have to do all the browsing on the Kindle, but you still have to 'buy' it from the Kindle. It's sort of a hidden link or a special way of narrowing search results with the criteria on the left side of the page. If you google I'm sure you can find instructions.
You can buy it from your phone or computer. Even if it is a Mac. You pick which device you want it sent to. And I totally don't get that y'all are saying ebooks cost more than trad.and "awful" selection? What don't they have?
You can buy from anywhere. But the Prime free rentals can only be done from the Kindle device itself.
Re: Amazon leaks Kindle Unlimited
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was thinking this sounds strangely like a library card you pay $120 a year for.
For many, libraries just aren't convenient. Even if the location itself is convenient, navigating the the eBook collection might not be. Even if navigating the eBook collection is convenient, there is often (in my admittedly limited experience) a wait time for the books I'm interested in. Perhaps there are some who would admonish me for sticking almost exclusively to eBooks, or for my laser focus on What I Want rathe…
>If my Library let me donate $120 to them annually with the ability to borrow from an eBook collection of 500,000+ without having to go to a local branch or waiting for someone to "return" the digital file then I'd write the check tomorrow.
My university's library sometimes has this feature. In my experience it's more delimited by the availability of ebooks beyond PDFs (especially scientific publishers only hand out PDFs, no mobis/ePubs at all) and a good measure of paranoia.
Currently, I can read the uni-library's ebooks only using Adobe's 'Digital Editions', which doesn't have a Linux client, and doesn't want to communicate with my Kindle, even if the file in question is an ePub.
(Of course with the right plugin Calibre can remove the DRM making the whole security theatre completely unnecessary)
Re: Amazon leaks Kindle Unlimited
#239First they made music a subscription service. And because I like music but I'm a poor struggling author, I didn't listen to those greedy musicians who said this was unfair. Screw you musicians. This Fantasy novel isn't going to get finished unless I can listen to my power-ballad spotify playlist. Then they made video a subscription service. And because I didn't make videos (video being a lesser form of entertainment)…
I think it is much more likely that businesses are readjusting for the new reality of customer expectations regarding media: cheap, on demand, and cheap. Customers don't care about how much royalties an artistic creator might get, and if they did they wouldn't have supported the music or book publishing industries, which gave authors tiny royalties for each book sold. Customers only care about price. And if piracy an…
To the immediate comment: it's the customers fault the writers don't get a lot more in royalties.
I think this rather narrow minded-- to think that as consumers we have control over what business(& believe me, publishers are a business), pay to the writers. That's like saying we have control over what a grocery store pays the company that makes Cheerios. The writers have to fight for what they want, just like we have to fight/negotiate with our boss for a raise. We, as consumers and fans of their writing could certainly support them in their endeavors but ultimately...it's up to them. :)
I would like to make a comment about The initial topic in relation to digital books & Amazon Prime. I read a lot! I mean a lot! Perhaps... 1 book every 1-3 days. What I've noticed is that books that would normally be offered as free books or, at the most 99 cents, are now being offered only in the Amazon Prime lending program. So now, what I use to get for free, I now have to pay a monthly fee for access. This upsets me greatly! I write reviews for the books which are published on Amazon, goodreads.com, & the authors blog, as well. This only helps the writer for future readers which in turn means better sales now and in the future. If Amazon left alone: the already free and the books in the future that fit that same category for free, then I think, this Prime lending idea might be a fair idea for consumers but it's not if they stick the free books in this Prime selection.
As far as the authors go and fairness to them...? Idk. It's going to be up to those writers to let us (as their readers) know what they think of the whole thing. If they ask for out support in changing things then I'm sure we all agree, we'll do what we can to help.
Our library doesn't have a lot of digital books but they're improving quickly, however the system is a little chaotic, and the wait list is long. I will gladly rent a physical book or digital from the library before paying for it but, quite frankly, it's not as easy as a download from Amazon. I personally love to hold a book in my hand. I love the smell of them and the nuance of turning a page. There's also the different text types that authors print. It's a way to customize their story. However, I also love the convenience of my kindle. If I took 20 books with me on vacation, I'd have to pay the extra weight fee for luggage :) but with my kindle the books are easily stored and transported. Portable. I have this ongoing fear that in our future an actual printed/paper book will be a huge commodity, children will be intrigued and mistified by this rare find and libraries will be no more. This would be a tragedy beyond my comprehension. I hope, for our children's sake, that printed books are very much a part of our future! 😉
Re: Amazon leaks Kindle Unlimited
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe ease into makerspaces like my local library which hosts meetings, and hosts kids events put on by one of the local makerspaces, but isn't technically "The Makerspace" probably because there is zero permanent storage, although makerspace people are there seemingly every day. Once you're all there all the time anyway, then ease into the "now we want/need/demand permanent storage" And machine tools. And a pony. Th…
Do they tag them with crayons like street parking spaces? Seriously, how does that work - is someone watching for unattended bag.. er kids and then calling police? What's the minimum age requirement for unattended visits to the library?
They have a regular police presence due to historical problems. Not quite an officer stationed there, but pretty close at certain times of day. Helps that there is a police substation next door. Calling wouldn't get an officer there any quicker, when one walks thru or past every ten minutes or so anyway.
There is a big cultural, uh, mismatch where the library requires more police intervention than any of the retail stores or bars or parks... liquor licenses have been lost for consuming far less police budget than the library. The library gets a free pass.
If all the policies were printed out from the web page it would be at least 100 printed pages. It is a very verbose CYA that boils down to anything you do that a librarian doesn't like will get you banned, and being there while banned is a legal trespassing offense, so one strike and you're out. If the librarians like you, you won't be banned no matter what you do. I can photocopy copyrighted materials, take pictures or videos of my kids, talk (whisper) on my phone, hang out for an hour while my kids take a class ... folks of a different race or economic group may have a somewhat different experience when they break any of those rules.
I was unable to find a minimum age, but I think you'd have to be at least upper grade school to survive not violating at least one of the hundreds of rules for more than a minute or two.
I did find that they define loitering as being in an area for longer than 15 minutes other than defined study desks, so no need for crayons or tagging. I've violated that rule a few dozen times, but I'm in no danger of being punished...
Given the sheer workload of homeless people and child day care, the librarians show quite a bit of restraint and can't enforce all the rules.