Well, sorta. Consider this as just me sharing MY experience.
So, I've been a Prime customer for years and had been borrowing one book a month via KOLL. A year ago I bought a one year KU subscription, just to see what all the fuss was about . . . plus it was bundled with the Fire I purchased so I figured, why not. And a few months ago they started the Prime Reading program.
I keep WiFi on all the time on both my kindles; I did download the last two books from KU I'd not yet finished to my Fire and turned wireless OFF on that device.
My KU subscription expired yesterday. I finished one of the books last night and, on closing it, I almost immediately got two letters saying both books had been returned since my subscription was expired. My normal practice is to re-collect the finished book into 'read it' vs 'reading queue' but I didn't even get a chance to do that -- it was gone!
Well, not too surprising really; I knew it was coming. I sort of thought I'd have until midnight but it probably was just about the time of day a year ago I'd signed up for KU. But it was almost like it knew I was reading the book and was just waiting for me to close it to snatch it away. I guess I'm just glad it didn't shut me down with 4 pages left to read!
Also, I was hoping it'd be like library books where there's still a record on Amazon that I read them, even if I've returned them. But, no. There's no longer any indication on either of my Kindles, or my account at Amazon that I ever had KU or read ANY books through the program. If I'd not kept track of the books I read separately via GR, I'd have no clue. Of course, it only did show them while I had them borrowed, so I guess it is, at least, consistent, but it would be nice to have the record there.
The other book I hadn't finished also disappeared from both kindles, of course. It is still on the Fire that had WiFi off . . . but, honestly I probably won't finish the book anyway; it wasn't grabbing me at all and the disturbing nature of the plot -- very bad stuff, graphically told, happening to young girls -- is not something I generally enjoy. I'm just going to assume the investigator got the bad guy and be on my way.
The GOOD News . . . . I was able, today, to borrow a book via KOLL. So Amazon seamlessly switched me off the KU subscription to the benefits I get as Prime Customer. Just to be sure, I also found a book in Prime Reading that I'd had wishlisted and borrowed it as well without any trouble. So that's good. When I go to MYC&D, the book borrowed via the Kindle and KOLL, has an orange Kindle Owners Lending Library tag and the one I borrowed via Prime Reading has the usual Prime tag same as you see on book pages.
As an experiment, KU was a moderate success. I read a lot of books I probably wouldn't have otherwise. The ratio of DNF books was much higher -- possibly because, having prepaid, there was no psychological spending happening with each borrow. As a result, some of the books I tried were, it turned out, not at all what I wanted to read. I did find a number of new series to follow -- I probably would have eventually via KOLL anyway, but this was faster. But, bottom line, I've got thousands of books on my account and don't need to borrow more than one a month. If I see something that looks good via Prime Reading, I can try it. Toward the end I was feeling some pressure to get the ones I'd already borrowed read and I didn't like that. Of course, if I hadn't known I'd been cancelling, maybe I'd not have felt that. On the whole, though, while it's a clever idea, it's not the right model for me.
So, I've been a Prime customer for years and had been borrowing one book a month via KOLL. A year ago I bought a one year KU subscription, just to see what all the fuss was about . . . plus it was bundled with the Fire I purchased so I figured, why not. And a few months ago they started the Prime Reading program.
I keep WiFi on all the time on both my kindles; I did download the last two books from KU I'd not yet finished to my Fire and turned wireless OFF on that device.
My KU subscription expired yesterday. I finished one of the books last night and, on closing it, I almost immediately got two letters saying both books had been returned since my subscription was expired. My normal practice is to re-collect the finished book into 'read it' vs 'reading queue' but I didn't even get a chance to do that -- it was gone!
Well, not too surprising really; I knew it was coming. I sort of thought I'd have until midnight but it probably was just about the time of day a year ago I'd signed up for KU. But it was almost like it knew I was reading the book and was just waiting for me to close it to snatch it away. I guess I'm just glad it didn't shut me down with 4 pages left to read!
Also, I was hoping it'd be like library books where there's still a record on Amazon that I read them, even if I've returned them. But, no. There's no longer any indication on either of my Kindles, or my account at Amazon that I ever had KU or read ANY books through the program. If I'd not kept track of the books I read separately via GR, I'd have no clue. Of course, it only did show them while I had them borrowed, so I guess it is, at least, consistent, but it would be nice to have the record there.
The other book I hadn't finished also disappeared from both kindles, of course. It is still on the Fire that had WiFi off . . . but, honestly I probably won't finish the book anyway; it wasn't grabbing me at all and the disturbing nature of the plot -- very bad stuff, graphically told, happening to young girls -- is not something I generally enjoy. I'm just going to assume the investigator got the bad guy and be on my way.
The GOOD News . . . . I was able, today, to borrow a book via KOLL. So Amazon seamlessly switched me off the KU subscription to the benefits I get as Prime Customer. Just to be sure, I also found a book in Prime Reading that I'd had wishlisted and borrowed it as well without any trouble. So that's good. When I go to MYC&D, the book borrowed via the Kindle and KOLL, has an orange Kindle Owners Lending Library tag and the one I borrowed via Prime Reading has the usual Prime tag same as you see on book pages.
As an experiment, KU was a moderate success. I read a lot of books I probably wouldn't have otherwise. The ratio of DNF books was much higher -- possibly because, having prepaid, there was no psychological spending happening with each borrow. As a result, some of the books I tried were, it turned out, not at all what I wanted to read. I did find a number of new series to follow -- I probably would have eventually via KOLL anyway, but this was faster. But, bottom line, I've got thousands of books on my account and don't need to borrow more than one a month. If I see something that looks good via Prime Reading, I can try it. Toward the end I was feeling some pressure to get the ones I'd already borrowed read and I didn't like that. Of course, if I hadn't known I'd been cancelling, maybe I'd not have felt that. On the whole, though, while it's a clever idea, it's not the right model for me.