Amazon just added a great new perk to its Prime membership – free books and magazines to read!
On Amazon there is no shortage of things to buy – but if you have a Prime membership, you get a lot of perks for your $99 a year. Now there’s a new one called Prime Reading. It gives you free books and magazines to download to all of your devices, and it’s actually stuff you want to read.
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Prime membership started with free shipping but has expanded over the years to include all types of perks – including unlimited photo storage, free streaming music, original TV shows and more.
The new Prime Reading benefit is similar to two programs Amazon has offered in the past, but it’s way better. Kindle Unlimited costs $10 a month for unlimited access to a selection of books, while Kindle Owner’s Lending Library would let you borrow a free book at a time, but you had to have a physical Kindle device to use the perk (and actually read the book on).
That’s why the new Prime Reading perk is so great – Amazon doesn’t care how you access it. As long as you have a Prime membership, you can download these free books and magazines to your Kindle app on iOS, Android, or a real Kindle device.
The titles are pretty good too. At launch they include The Hobbit, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, The Man In the High Castle, The Millionaire Next Door, Half Way Home, When I’m Gone and more. I recently paid $9 to buy a digital copy of Harry Potter, which under the new program is totally free since I’m a Prime member. That $9 represents nearly 10% of my yearly membership fee of $99!
It gets even better when you throw the magazines into the mix. I was thoroughly surprised at the high quality titles available for download. I’m talking Sports Illustrated, Entertainment Weekly, People magazine and more! These rotate each month so you’re not guaranteed your favorite but chances are you will find something to enjoy.
Currently, I pay $10 a month for an unlimited magazine subscription through an app called Texture. And you better believe that I don’t read all of those magazines each month. Usually I just need a few magazines to get me through a flight or the only few quiet minutes I have on a Sunday morning before the kids wake up. Keep in mind you can download both the books and the magazines to your device for offline reading, aka you do not need to be connected to the internet or WiFi to read.
So how do you access this amazing new feature? Just download and open the Kindle app on your phone, iPad or other device.
On Kindle for Android go into Menu > Store > and look for “NEW! Prime Reading”
On Kindle for iOS go into Menu > Book Browser > and look for “Prime Reading” or scroll down the screen and look for “Current Magazines in Prime Reading”
Enjoy your free new books and magazines – courtesy of your Amazon Prime membership.
