Quote:
Originally Posted by MMHaven
The thing is, I can't really afford to buy books. Even with coupons, I would still be spending actual money if I bought from Fictionwise or elsewhere. Amazon offers gift cards that I can get through various programs, which no other site does except Barnes & Noble, and theirs cost more.
|
Up until that recent sale of the 35 Ed McBain books for 99 cents each, I'd "paid" for all my (few) Amazon e-book purchases using gift cards earned via Swagbucks.
For some people, Amazon really is the best store which suits their needs and wants and there's no problem with that. They've found something that works for them and that's great.
The problem arises when people who consider Amazon the best for them to also be more-or-less as good for just about everyone else, and there's a noticeable amount of complacency on MR about just how much "less" it might turn out to be, as well as a tendency to gloss over and handwave issues as being easily bypassed or totally trivial in comparison to the perceived benefits.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Indio777
As far as pricing based on region, has Amazon offered any logical reason for doing this?
|
Back when all Kindle models were 3G only (pre-K3) and the apps were in very primitive stages and the WiFi didn't exist, so it was reasonable to assume that anyone getting a Kindle book outside the US had a very high likelihood of owning an actual hardware Kindle and using the 3G to download their books, according to what I've read on the Amazon discussion boards back when I was still reading them, their CS used to quasi-officially admit that the $2 extra was a surcharge to pay for the cost of the 3G.
This was before Amazon had gotten into place a number of the carrier agreements it currently has and thus had to pay the delivery costs piecemeal at a much higher price. US-registered Kindlers who for whatever reason used the 3G book download function outside the States (travelling overseas, lying about actual address, etc.) had a corresponding $1.99 per book downloaded via 3G fee which would be automatically charged to their account, which was noted in the official help literature. I think they've since ended the overseas "roaming" fee.
Of course, with the advent of the WiFi-only models and the proliferation of the various Kindle for Apps to the point where a mild majority of the respondents in this actual post have no actual Kindle hardware listed in the Device section of their profile blurb-box, the entire idea of it being a surcharge for the previously 3G-only Whispernet insta-delivery service became quietly pushed to the background and now there's no actual official-ish reason admitted to for it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Indio777
Hmmm, does this mean that you are considering stopping your listings?
|
I've been considering practically since I
began and first said that I think the entire KDP Select exclusive-or-else thing was a bad idea, but at least we get some occasionally nice sf/fantasy backlist freebies and that was the one and only upside I saw to the program.
I will say that Amazon's recent Product Info change so that one can no longer determine the DRM status of a book is pushing things nearer to the event horizon of untenably diminishing returns. 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".
And the vast majority of the posts in here and the blogs out there are exclusionarily Amazon-centric enough that I don't really feel like adding to that. It's probably bad karma, anyway.