I am, with extremely mixed feelings, trying out Kobo+, which is Kobo’s subscription service, like Kindle Unlimited for Amazon.
Here’s the utterly ridiculous thing: I have zero problem with people using KU or Kobo+, so why do I feel weird about it? I do not know. But I do. If I were more likely to get through books faster, I’d just check them out from the library, but I’m all too aware that many, indeed most, of my books lie around waiting for months or years for me to read them, and libraries still expect you to return books, so… :)
Hm, let’s see. Kobo+ has the advantage of paying writers by the minute read instead of the page read, and they continue to pay writers if somebody re-reads the book 8 times on K+. Kindle Unlimited only pays writers the first time you read a book, so I think I feel K+ is probably offering a better deal in that regard. Of course, I also read really fast, so possibly it’s not a better deal for the writer, but…well, nothing’s perfect, and odds are that if I’m going to re-read anything in K+ I’ll buy it anyway because if I like it enough to read twice, why wouldn’t I buy it?
OOOOH, but a catch with the Kobo+ free trial is that authors don’t get paid for the books read during it. Which, given that I’m planning on reading the rest of a 7 book series & 2 more in a trilogy in the next few weeks, is Not On.
Ah, but if I cancel the free trial & resubscribe, I get charged. That’s ok then.
Right, well, I think there’s zero chance of this causing me to stop buying books (I’ve got 4 on preorder right now), but it’ll be interesting to see how many K+ books I read over the next several months. I suspect it’ll be worth it financially to me, at least, and…yeah. We’ll see how I feel about it.
(If, by the way, you’re looking to re-read something in KU and want to maximize a writer’s profits:
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read the book in KU
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read the book again in a KU box set
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buy the book for any further re-reads
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if you really REALLY wanna maximize their profits, also buy the box set :)
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no one expects you to do all that :))