Amazon introduces Kindle Unlimited service for unlimited e-book reading

Amazon has officially announced its Kindle Unlimited service for unlimited eBook reading and audiobook listening for a fixed monthly fee. The service is for Americans, but Amazon plans to bring it to other countries.

The collection consists of 600,000 e-book titles and thousands of audiobooks. Users do not need to have a Kindle e-reader to use the e-book service; smartphones and tablets also work with Kindle Unlimited, if the Kindle Reading apps are installed. Audiobooks can also be listened to with the Audible app and customers also get three months access to the collection of 150,000 audiobooks from that service.

Users pay $9.99 for the all-you-can-read service and get one month of free trial access. For now, only US customers are eligible for Kindle Unlimited. Amazon says it plans to roll out the service in more countries. In the EU, this will be preceded by the necessary negotiations with publishers in Member States. Incidentally, Amazon does not yet offer services directly in the Benelux.