Amazon is quietly testing out a new way for Kindle book fiends to earn rewards. Kindle Rewards is a new program that is currently being beta tested and is currently invite only. Basically, for every dollar you spend on Kindle books you get 5 points and 2 points for print books, and for every 300 points you get $3 dollars worth of credits that you spend to buy even more Kindle books. There are also bonus offers from which you can earn more points. However, Kindle Rewards is not very good value and needs to be fixed, if Amazon ever hopes about rolling it out to all of their users.
If you intend on buying a few books a month, you will never get enough points to do anything meaningful. This is because points expires in 6 months, so if you are a casual reader, you are out of luck. If you manage to get a few dollars in credit, but don’t actually hit the $3.00 threshold, tough luck, they expire in 30 day. Basically, if you want to get $3.00 in credit, you will have to spend $60 to get it. If you want to actually get a free book, you will have spend $180 in six months to do it. However, using credit to get a free book will earn you points.
Kindle Rewards is a convoluted system, full of expiry of credit and points in different durations of time. Only the most voracious of readers have any hope of getting free books. Sadly, you can only get points from Kindle books and print books, but not audiobooks, comics or manga. Prime Reading books or Kindle Unlimited Books are also not eligible for points, since you are not actually buying them.
Kindle Rewards is available in a few different countries, but there is not an official list anywhere. Users in the US, Canada, Norway and the United Kingdom have all reported getting invites. If you want to see if you are eligible for Kindle Rewards, you can visit the official website.
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.
