Amazon has a feature called Kindle Unlimited; in each day’s post, I have a line underneath each book title to let you know if a book is part of the Kindle Unlimited program or not.  However, I continue to receive quite a few emails each month from people asking me to explain Kindle Unlimited – so, what is it?

Basically, Kindle Unlimited is a program where for $9.99 per month you can read as much as you want from over 1 million Kindle books as well as listen to a little over 100,000 Audible audiobooks – as many or as few titles as you want for the $9.99 per month fee.  For those books on the blog that say “Yes” in red as being part of the program, if you are a Kindle Unlimited member you can read that book for free. As I type up this post a little more than 50% of all Kindle titles are in the program.

I wouldn’t categorize these offerings as a bunch of books you’ve never heard of, as there are a lot of bestsellers on the list. Some independent authors love it as it has allowed more people to check out their work (and buy their other titles), some independent authors absolutely hate it as it cuts into their royalty (i.e., salary), and there are other independent authors who refuse to enroll their books in the program. The author does get paid by Amazon for each page read, and there are many authors out there who earn more per month on the number of pages read than they do on actual book sales.

There are also quite a few magazines you can read for free with Kindle Unlimited. I read several of them from time-to-time on my Fire tablet.

You can participate with your Kindle, Fire Tablet, or Kindle reading app – yes, that includes your iPhone, Android phone, etc., and Amazon will let you try it for free for 30 days. If you don’t like it or not using all of the benefits of the program, and having read as many books as you possibly can in that 30 days, just cancel it before the 30 days or up and you won’t be charged.

I’m a member of Kindle Unlimited and I certainly get more than $9.99 per month of books to read: since my family reads a lot, also, we’re really saving a lot of money each month. You can check it out yourself if you click here.

Have fun trying out the free 30-day trial period!

Michael

 

 

While I believe one of the advantages of the Kindle platform is the ability of independent and self-published authors to level the playing field against the big publishing houses – become published in the first place, gain new audiences, adapt quickly to change among others – it can also have some disadvantages.  I certainly have found lots of independent, self-published authors I have enjoyed; there are some things that really shouldn’t be published at all.

While I have that opinion with some of the things from offerings of the “name brand” authors and publishers, most of that opinion is because the genre is not for me.  That’s true with everyone, and not what I’m talking about in this post.

I’m talking about what should be the simple things: proper formatting, correct spelling, the right context of the word (there vs. their, its vs. it’s).  A little proofing should be expected!  I don’t know about you, but when I am reading something I usually get very absorbed in it and can lose all track of time.  If there are misspelled words – whether it is in a book I’m reading for pleasure or a document I am reviewing at work – I immediately lose my concentration.  Completely.  It’s even worse if there are syntax or word context errors.

Why does that happen – doesn’t Amazon proof material before it is published in the Kindle format?  The short answer is no.

A couple of errors can be forgiven.  A lot of errors drive me up the wall, and I want my money back.  While Amazon has a very generous Kindle return policy, I am typically unable to take advantage of it as I usually buy several books and they gather electronic dust in my eBook to be read list – in most cases, the return policy has expired.

By the way, bloggers like me should be exempt from everything I am picking on in this post!

It’s not that I am against the independent author – I’m not – I would like to think they would like to know of the errors, also.  After all, if you get upset and hate something you probably won’t buy follow-on offerings from them or write bad reviews and others won’t buy their offerings.  I also like to think if they knew there was an issue (and they should check the formatting on a Kindle prior to publishing), they will immediately correct it; Amazon’s self-publishing platform allows on-the-fly changes, with revised editions being able to literally replicate through the Kindle storefront in less than 12 hours (try that with paper copies).

Let me give you an example: I read an independent book not too long ago and really enjoyed the plot, characters, etc. but the author started distracting me with spelling errors as well as errors in the formatting.  I made a point to mention it in my online review of the book.  I’ve also purchased eBooks from Amazon that were so bad I just stopped and deleted the book – in that case, I wish I had a way to report the bad formatting to Amazon so the book could be taken down from the marketplace and others wouldn’t be burned, too.

By now, many of you are hoping I will have this post reach its dramatic conclusion – I will – and tell you how to report bad formatting of a Kindle edition.  Here is how you do it.

• Go to the book’s Kindle page.  Pick any book (I will wait)..
• Scroll down about 90% of the way down, right near the bottom of the page.  You will see a boxed-in area called “Report an issue” with three options.  With these options, you can click to:
  • Report the content as inappropriate
  • Report the book if you believe it violates a copyright
  • Report poor quality or formatting in the book

You would want to click the third option to report errors.  If you do, be prepared to categorize what type(s) of errors you are seeing:

• Poor formatting
• Typos
• Low Quality images or tables
• Other specific issues.

Once you click one of the above four options, Amazon will request the location of the issue (i.e., location / page number of the error in the Kindle version) as well as a dialogue box where you can type in what you believe is incorrect.

Hope that helps!

Michael

 

 

Here’s a question I receive via email from time-to-time (you can always email me: michael at fkbt dot com):

I have been downloading Kindle books for quite a while, always the free ones. In fact my account is so old I don’t have a credit card attached to it anymore, so I couldn’t download a priced book even if I wanted to. I really like the freedom this gives me, in that I don’t have to worry about making a mistake, clicking the button, and getting charged for something I didn’t realize was free.

Here’s the dilemma… there are a couple of books I would like to buy / they are not free. Is there a way to do this without using a credit card? I’m not quite sure how gift cards work. Any ideas?

An Amazon account without a credit card – I’ll bet it’s rare, but it could happen if your initial credit card expired or you got rid of it and never updated your Amazon account; seeing as how the reader above gets her Kindle material for free, I can envision a situation where someone could download the free books, games, music, and apps from the Amazon website and never pay a cent.

That doesn’t answer the question – how to purchase something from Amazon without a credit card? She can’t purchase an Amazon gift card, as it would take a credit card or a draft from an existing checking account to buy it from the Amazon website. While I am sure there are other ways to do this, three ways I can think off the top of my head to get an Amazon gift card without using an existing credit card:

1. Have someone give you an Amazon gift card.
2. Turn in your spare change to a Coinstar machine and receive an Amazon gift card in exchange for no fee (click here for my post on instructions on how to do that).
3. Most major grocery stores and other large retailers have a gift card display, where you can purchase gift cards not only to that store but to the big box retailers and online retailers such as Amazon. You could take cash to one of those stores and purchase an Amazon gift card in varying denominations.

Assuming you tried one of the three methods above, you would then go online to the Amazon store, login to the My Account section, and apply the gift card code (and funds) to your Amazon account – all without having to whip out a credit card.

Can anyone think of another method? If so, please leave a comment in the comment field below.

Hope that helps!

Michael

 

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