Amazon Kindle Unlimited has just launched in Japan. The program costs ¥980 per users will get access to over 120,000 Japanese titles and over 1.2 million titles in other languages.
Kindle Unlimited is Amazons all you can read platform. The vast majority of titles are from smaller publishers and indie authors. In Japan, there are thousands of graphic novels and single issue manga titles that can also be accessed.
Serious readers will likely subscribe to the service in order to read all of the e-books they have been wanting to read. It is important to note that you will not find new titles on this platform, but everything is six months old or more.
Publishers and booksellers are less enthusiastic. “Many bookstores would feel an impact if a large number of new and popular titles” became part of the unlimited offerings, MaruzenJunkudo Bookstores President Yasutaka Kudo said, noting that in-store sales could drop and returns could climb.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
