Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Kindle Unlimited launched in Japan

Today, I was notified about the starting of Kindle Unlimited.


Kindle Unlimited is a service provided bu Amazon. Subscribers of this monthly payment contract can access all of the subjected e-books offered by Amazon without limitation. You can read e-books, comics, and magazines via Kindle or Fire tablet.

This service was launched in the US, and spread to some other countries. I tried it when staying in the UK in 2014. And I felt it was not so cool as expected from its name. Some big publishers did not approve this scheme, not permitting their products to be subjected to unlimited reading. Also, Amazon Prime subscribers can read one e-book per month for free. Thus, Kindle Unlimited seemed not so advantageous than other similar services.

My past entry: Immature Kindle Unlimited

In Japan, Kindle Unlimited offers a total of 1,200,000 e-books. The number was larger than that in the UK two years ago. But it includes many English e-books. I am glad to try some English e-books. There are 120,000 Japanese e-books are available. This number seems not bad.

It is good that comic books are subjected to Kindle Unlimited. Some comic books deserve to be read through, but not to be possessed forever. But, most publishers are hesitating to offer comic books to Kindle Unlimited. In Japan, some other services for the unlimited reading of comic books available. Despite offering some comic books, Kindle Unlimited should be considered to be a service for book worms, rather than comic lovers.

In Japan, it was reported that new products will be offered two months after registration in Kindle Unlimited. It is not certain that newest issues of a magazine are readable. At a glance, there are newest issues of some magazines downloadable. This scheme may for protecting income of publishers which are willing to sell paper books. I think this policy is acceptable. When wanting to read the newest articles, I will run to a book store.

I have subscribed this service for a month for free. I will enjoy unlimited reading for a while.


*Sequel

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