July is a special month for Amazon, practically as big or bigger than the year-end December holiday shopping season. So you may want to check it out, and if you aren’t an Amazon Prime member, you might want to consider the benefits. Amazon Prime isn’t for everyone. Some people don’t buy things on Amazon that come with free Prime shipping, so that’s not valuable to them. Others cannot justify paying the annual membership fee. But if you like reading books on Kindle devices, the benefits may outweigh the costs…and make Prime Membership a real bargain for you. Let’s look at some of the reasons why that may be true and make sense for you. There are also some clever tips to help you find the e-books you enjoy on Amazon.

Amazon Prime Day Sales

The big Amazon Prime Day sale is back again, and if you’re a Prime member you can reap substantial savings on e-readers. If you’re not familiar with Prime Day, all you need to know that it is the biggest discount shopping day of the entire year, not counting Black Friday. The official date of Prime Day is Early July 16 through 17. But leading up to it Amazon is helping to build excitement by offering special Prime Day type discounts ahead of time. So check it out during the first half of July, because the savings on everything from e-books to e-reader devices and other items could be huge. You might save enough to even cover the cost of a Prime Membership, which is about $119 a year.

Electronic Magazine Subscriptions

Meanwhile, did you know that you can subscribe to and read e-book versions of your favorite magazines. Even when there isn’t a special sale promotion like Prime Days, you can save a ton on magazines. Plus you enjoy the convenience of watching them on your portable device. You can typically save more than 60% off on all kinds of different magazine subscriptions you can download and read on an e-reader device like a Kindle. You can, for instance, get a whole year’s worth of many popular magazines for as little as $5. That’s less than 45 cents a month.

Amazon Audio Books

Prime Members can also save more than 65 percent on Amazon Audible, which is the service for audio e-books. As a member of Amazon Audio you’ll eligible for other deep discounts, too. Prime Membership also means you get access to new titles each month, to keep you updated. You get to keep your audio books, in your own personal library, which is great. Then you can access them from your mobile e-reader device and take them wherever you go. Amazon lets you download a free app, to ensure that you can hear your audio books conveniently and seamlessly. There’s also a great features with Amazon Audible. If you buy an audio book and decide it’s not what you expected, you can trade it in for something else you like better.

A Tip for Finding Audio Books

Here’s an easier way to find audio books, and ones that are eligible for Prime Membership discount pricing.

Click on this link, or do a search on Amazon using the words “Books with audible narration in Prime reading.” If you’re browsing titles on Amazon, you can also use the search filter options displays on the left side of the page. You’ll see a column that starts with the heading “Show Results For.” Under it, check the box that says “E-books with Audible Narration.” You can additionally add a further filter by checking the box that says “Prime Reading Eligible” or “Kindle Unlimited Eligible.” That will cause the search engine to only display e-books that meet those specifications.

Choose Audio Book Lengths

You can even drill down more specifically by looking under the heading that says “Kindle Short Reads.” Below it you’ll see the following options:

• 45 minutes (22-32 pages)
• One hour (33-43 pages)
• 90 minutes (44-64 pages)
• Two hours or more (65-100 pages)

Just click on the option you want. For instance, if you want a book that takes 90 minutes to listen to from start to finish, click on the “90 minutes (44-64 pages) option. This feature is really handy if you know how much time you have to listen to an audio book on Kindle, and you want to be able to finish the whole book. Let’s say you’re traveling on a bus to work, and the commute takes one hour. Pick a one-hour title. Or if you’re aboard a flight and won’t touch down at your destination for two hours, pick the two-hour option. You’ll be presented with a list of all the audio books that meet your criteria, and then you just take your pick.