Amazon Kindle Unlimited, Read-All-You-Can Service, Launched In India At $3 A Month

Search for the keywords "Kindle Unlimited" on Amazon.com Inc.’s India website, and you get some 11,400 results for just books that tell you how to get the most out of your Kindle Unlimited subscription.

Most of these guides cost nothing and the occasional one costs about a dollar. For the truly enthusiastic ones in India, these might now prove useful, as the U.S. online behemoth has brought the read-all-you-can subscription service to India, with an initial 1 million e-books.

That is still only about one in 35 of all Kindle e-books available on the Indian site, but hey, would you read a million books in a lifetime, or even 10,000?

As an introductory offer, users get to subscribe to the service at 99 rupees (about $1.5) for their first month, provided they sign up before Sept. 30, reverting to the 199 rupee-plan for subsequent months, Amazon said in a press release on Wednesday. There are also, of course, discounts for those willing to plonk down larger sums for six-month or one-year subscriptions.

However, not everyone is impressed, especially those interested in quality reads. For instance, none of the books on the New York Times bestseller top-five fiction list for the week of Sept. 6 are available on the unlimited service.

If that makes obvious business sense, consider Amitav Ghosh, one of India’s most acclaimed writers. Amazon India threw up 23 results for him, including more academic works related to his writing. Not one was available on the Kindle Unlimited.

More popular “time-pass” reads, as Indians like to say, however, are available aplenty. While it’s possible that a million e-books will certainly hold a hidden gem or more, Amazon hasn’t made it easy for readers to find them, with its default opening page for the unlimited service packed with recommendations of the popular-but-light-reading category of books.