Kindle Unlimited, explained for romance readers
What the subscription actually is, when it pays for itself, when it does not, and how authors like me get paid when you read on it.
Yung-Lung Chen
Every one of my novels carries the line “read free in Kindle Unlimited,” and every month someone writes to ask what that means in practice. Here is the plain version, including the part authors usually leave out.
What it is
Kindle Unlimited is a subscription from Amazon. You pay a flat monthly fee and you can borrow any book that carries the Kindle Unlimited badge, up to twenty at a time, and read them on a Kindle or in the free Kindle app on a phone or tablet. When you return one, you can borrow another. You do not own the books; when the subscription ends, the borrowed books go back.
Romance is the biggest category in it by a distance, which is why so many of the authors you already read are there, and why the badge shows up on so many covers in the genre.
How authors get paid, since you asked
Here is the part that matters to me. A book in Kindle Unlimited is exclusive to Amazon for ebooks, and the author is paid out of a monthly fund according to how many pages subscribers read. Not how many borrows. Pages. So when you read one of my books on Kindle Unlimited and finish it, I am paid about what I would have made from a sale, and when you stop at chapter four, I am paid for four chapters. I have never found a fairer arrangement, and I say that as someone it has occasionally cost.
When it pays for itself
The arithmetic is simple. If you read three or more Kindle Unlimited books in a month, the subscription costs less than buying them. If you read one, it costs more. Most romance readers I know are in the first group and were before they ever subscribed.
It also pays for itself in a different way if you are the kind of reader who tries a lot of books and finishes some of them. Borrowing a book you abandon at chapter three costs you nothing but the hour, which changes how brave you are about new authors. That is how a lot of readers found this series.
When it does not
If you want to own what you read, to lend it, to mark it up, to have it still there in ten years, buy the books. If most of the authors you read are not in the program, you will spend the fee and borrow nothing. And if you have a stack of unread purchases already, a subscription will not make you read faster. Nothing does.
The practical bits
- Amazon usually offers a free trial to new members. This is the page. If you join through that link I may earn a small commission; it does not change your price.
- You can cancel from your Amazon account at any time, and the books you have borrowed stay readable until the period you paid for ends.
- To find books in the program, look for the badge on the listing, or use the Kindle Unlimited filter in the store.
- All three Cold City novels are in it. The reading guide has the order.
If you try it and it is not for you, cancel without guilt. The books will still be $3.99 each, and still here.