About 5 months ago Amazon added Prime Reading to the list of benefits for Amazon Prime members. The month before that they added free Audible Channels and audiobook streaming for Prime members.
Most people probably get Amazon Prime for the free 2-day shipping on Amazon orders, and for the video and music streaming services.
But how many Prime members make use of Prime Reading and audiobook streaming?
I would guess the percentage is pretty low.
There are probably a lot of Prime members that still don’t know they have access to a library of free ebooks and audiobooks.
Currently Amazon has over 1000 Prime eligible Kindle ebooks available to download and read for free.
The selection is basically .1 percent of the titles that are available in Kindle Unlimited, Amazon’s ebook subscription service.
The audio content includes Audible Channels with original audio series and handcrafted playlists, plus a selection of audiobooks to stream anytime.
Unlike the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library, another Prime perk, a Kindle or Fire tablet is not required to use Prime Reading. All you need is a free Kindle app for iOS or Android.
So what do you think about Prime Reading and Audible Channels? Are they Prime benefits that you use regularly?
I love Audible Channels.
To bad they didn’t tell anybody. This is 1st I knew of it.
I am a Prime member and never heard of the Prime Reading and audiobook streaming. I watch a few movies and buy a few things, but I didn’t think it was worth it and was going to quit. I became a student and got it free for 6 months and then at half the price. Maybe the students don’t get this option; if I remember correctly it didn’t come with the music.
I’ll have to look into this to see if the student prime gets these now.
It’s bad enough I don’t “own” the e-books I actually purchase from them. I don’t trust Amazon enough to read anything on loan. And I have no use for any of the Audible benefits.
I don’t use either the Prime Reading or Audible Channels. I do have the Kindle software installed on a couple of tablets even thought my e-reader device is a Nook.
Unlike most, I have Prime for the media content. I rarely order “hard” stuff from Amazon. I’ve taken advantage of e-books (a couple months ago Life of Pi was available for Prime members) and the channels. I’ve not yet seen any audiobooks I’m interested in. I can’t imagine how anyone with a Prime membership could not know about this–Amazon sends out e-mails ad nauseaum advertising these features.
There are some catches. The audible channels (some good books and stories but lots more podcasts) are for anyone in the prime members “family” but the prime reading books are only for the named prime member. Amazon can be very arbitrary with what can be shared services vs named-member services.
I think it is a trickery Amazon have created “to seduce” new customers. New Customers wouldn’t know that selection of eligible for Prime books is actually very limited and current customers were convinced with something else… 🙂 I was Amazon Unlimited subscriber for a while which has much bigger library. Decided that it’s easier to buy what I need than trying to convince myself reading those “freebies”, and never listened to Audible Channels.
And a bit of off topic just to give you an idea what the Amazon is. It’s like with PrimeVideo they’ve introduced “around the globe”. As a regular traveller I can tell you that video library is VERY VERY MUCH limited outside of the major Amazon markets like USA, Canada, Germany, UK. I’m talking about something like a hundred titles or around that. They haven’t managed to make available even most of the Amazon Original content.
I get Unlimited for books and don’t notice the Prime books. I do know that if I get a Unlimited book I can buy the Audible book. When I return the Unlimited book I still own the Audible book. This is a great way to increase my Audible library.
I also have Echo and it reads Kindle books with text to speech.
Thank you so much.
First I knew about this !!