Quote:
Originally Posted by ATDrake
I'd "paid" for all my (few) Amazon e-book purchases using gift cards earned via Swagbucks.
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What's Swagbucks, IIMA?
Quote:
Originally Posted by ATDrake
If the feature titles can no longer be seen or reliably stated to be DRM-free and thus readily available to all MR members who would like to get them, then it's not so much "sharing" as "taunting people with what they might not be able to enjoy without significant hoop-jumping, assuming they're limber enough to jump through the hoops".
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Speaking personally, since the Kobo Vox can download the Kindle app through the web without any need to hack or jailbreak, I just use that for Kindle stuff.
No offence intended to those who love Amazon and are happy having only a Kindle, but I believe in competition. I think it'll be bad for the industry if Amazon becomes the only game in town for e-books. Amazon's moves to try to tempt/force authors to go exclusive with Amazon isn't changing my opinion much. Neither is their war on "bricks and mortar" independents, where they actually have tools for people to scan a book in person and buy it online, while providing pricing info back to Amazon. For those reasons and more, I'm trying to avoid purchasing anything from Amazon. But if someone wants to offer it to me free and legally, who am I to say no? It's a great way to discover an author who, if they ever get out from under Amazon's yoke, I might buy in my e-book marketplace of choice. I'm not one of these people who complains about e-book pricing, if a favoured author rolls out a new e-book at $13.99 I'll fall over myself to buy it.
The hardest apparent Amazon-exclusive for me to resist right now is David Wingrove's forthcoming new re-releases of his "Chung Kuo" series (where he's expanded it from 8 books to 20 books, including two completely new prequel books, a completely new ending, thoroughly added to and edited the remaining volumes, and added a total addition of 500K new words across the 20 volumes. The first new volume's out and I want to read this desperately, and it's even pretty inexpensive, but the only e-book version appears to be for Kindle at the moment. I've contacted the publisher about whether it's coming to other e-book marketplaces, but not yet heard back. I certainly can read it, easily and legally, via the Kindle app, but it's not my preference to do so. It's a dilemma.
I'll tell you this, though, I *won't* pirate it. I watched piracy contribute to killing the Dreamcast game console, I watched piracy kill the Stargate SG-1 direct-to-DVD movie sequels (they were amongst the most popular torrented DVDs around the time of their release), and the message is clear: steal what you love, and you may not be able to enjoy it for much longer. I'm actually happily re-buying e-books that I already own on paper, and taking the opportunity to sell/give away the dead-tree versions so that other people can discover the authors I love.
Anyway, this is getting a little off topic. To bring it home, indie authors who go KDP-exclusive should know that some of us think they're part of the problem, rather than the solution, and that ability the to offer your e-books free might end up with some of us choosing to get them free or not at all as long as they're distributed exclusively by Amazon, even those of us who think nothing of paying over $10 for e-books from the authors we love.