Are you an Amazon Prime member?

Do you take advantage of everything this monthly subscription includes? I've been a mender for years, ever since Grand Tour was about to launch.

Like many I consider it great value for the free Amazon Prime shipping. The Prime video is considered a free bonus. It occassionally has something worth watching, but it's definitely not a go to streaming service like Netflix or Disney+.

But Amazon are fairly aloof about the other benefits you get as a Prime subscriber, and often you stumble across them by accident, or receive a random email from Amazon about not missing a monthly perk you didn't know existed.

The first example is one most will know about, and that is Amazon Music. Similar to, but not as good as, Netflix. To gain full access you have to take a seperate subscription. But as a Prime member you already have access to a smaller 10% selection of the total music library.

The next is Kindle Unlimited. This is less known to many. The full Kindle Unlimited subscription gives you access to over a million ebooks. This includes not just novels and non fiction, but also magazines and other printed books. But Amazon Prime members also have access to a smaller portion of this same library. About 100k ebooks if I remember correctly. And it works the same as Kindle Unlimited. You can browse the library and borrow up to 10 books at any one time. Returning some to borrow more. Personally I think this is a very ckunky and awkward system that is unnecessary. It's also buggy. It doesn't always let you add an included book to your library or unghost the download. And you can't always remove a book to clear it so you can add a new one. I just don't see the point in this system. What is the reason for restricting the number? I can't really see one on digital media. It should be like game subscriptions. Add whatever and download as many as you like whilst your subscription is active. Just make it hard to use.

The next is a bonus for Prime members that I only discovered last year. It's called First Reads. Each month Kindle will publish a page called First Reads that will highlight up to 10 newly released novels. As a Prime member you can pick one from this list to keep free. And this month is 2 books. Worth a look as they are free and included in your subscription.

Thy final one I will mention so far is Prime Gaming. Now this is one not many k ow about or will ever of heard about. You won't easily find it by visiting Amazon and its almost like they want to keep it secret.

Amazon have a dirisl gaming library called Amazon Gaming. And as a Prime member each month they give away a few PC games for you to add to your Amazon gaming library. To download and play on your PC a and when you want. A bit like the old PS Plus or Xbox Gold subscriptions that have you free games each month. You have to claim them that month to add them to your library, but get to keep and pay them forever. Just go to Amazon and search for Amazon gaming to find the homepage.

Any other benefits of being an Amazon Prime member I've firgotten?

Looking at the benefits it's not actually a bad price at all. You don't get access to the whole music or Kindle libraries, but you do have access to about 10% of them. And we all know it's a marketting ploy to entice you to subscribe to the full package.